Written by Abeer Butmeh from PENGON, Friends of the Earth Palestine*
If the international community is serious about climate justice, it can no longer turn a blind eye to its own hypocrisy and the genocide in Gaza.
The world is witnessing a genocide taking place on screens, and live on social media from Gaza and the West Bank. The death toll is over 43,000 human lives – at least 56% of deaths have been of women and children.
We are shown irreversible devastation wreaked on Palestine at the hands of Israel, but the ties between the violations of international and human rights laws and militarisation are ignored. While these crimes also connect to climate change, adding ecocide to the genocide, no mention of them was visible on the global climate stage, COP29. Why?
The overwhelming human and environmental devastation of Gaza should have been made central at this year’s UNFCCC climate negotiations, to bring about climate justice and put an end to what is absolute impunity. How is it that international climate policy ignores this reality, putting so little value on Palestinian lives, humanity and dignity?
The destruction of Gaza is one of the largest cases of ecocide in recent history
This is part of a continuum that started in 1967 with the occupation and theft of Palestinian land for a colonial regime, while the Gaza Strip has been subjected to an arbitrary and illegal 17-year-long blockade. The current war creates environmental destruction that makes Gaza one of the worst ecocides in recent history.
Since the start of the ecocide, the region has undergone extensive damage to soil, water wells, critical solar energy projects and farms. Since October 2023, over 60% of Gaza’s agricultural land has been devastated or destroyed.
The war has spewed hundreds of thousands of tonnes of CO₂, equivalent to burning 31 million tonnes of coal—the output of nearly 16 U.S. coal-fired power plants running for a full year. In just 120 days, this carbon footprint outpaced the yearly emissions of 26 individual countries and territories. Rebuilding Gaza’s shattered urban landscape will drive emissions even higher, exceeding those of the 130 lowest-emitting nations. Meanwhile, the unlawful use of weapons like white phosphorus fills the air and pollutes the soil with toxic chemicals, compounding the environmental destruction.
Gaza was rendered increasingly dependent on renewable energy sources like solar power, with solar energy projects covering 20% of the area’s household energy needs. Israel has committed itself to decimating critical infrastructure, cutting off a lifeline for Palestinians. This also resulted in the cessation or obstruction of desalination plant operations and wastewater treatment plants. Effects are especially profound for women and girls whose lives and health, as a result of the cascading implications, are threatened due to lack of access to proper sanitation and emergency care. Gender justice is central to the fight for climate justice and the liberation of the people of Palestine.
Shameless peacewashing and greenwashing at COP29
The COP29 was just recently hosted by Azerbaijan, proclaiming the negotiations the “COP of peace” while pressing on as Israel’s leading oil supplier.
In a flagrant attempt to both greenwash and peacewash its global image, Azerbaijan hosts global climate negotiations while accounting for approximately 40% of Israel’s annual crude oil imports that are transported through the BTC pipeline, majority owned by BP and state-owned company SOCAR.
The complicity of Global North governments in Israel’s crimes illustrates what many frontline communities in the Global South go through in terms of climate violence. Peoples and lands are sacrificed to protect the profits of powerful elites and big corporations. It is now more important than ever for climate policy to reflect the exceedingly strong ties between climate change, corporate impunity and colonialism. We demand a ceasefire now, an end to the genocide and a free Palestine. There is no climate justice without Palestinian liberation.
* PENGON / Friends of the Earth Palestine is a member group of Friends of the Earth International (FoEI), an environmental and social justice movement. Founded in 1970, FoEI is the largest grassroots ecologist federation in the world and being dedicated to peace, condemns islamophobia and antisemitism, as well as all forms of racism, militarism, oppression and violence.
Image: At COP29, Abeer Butmeh and fellow activists read aloud thousands of names of Palestinian people killed by the genocide in Gaza. Credit: Bianka Csenki, The Artivist Network
This piece was originally published on Friends of the Earth International on November 28th 2024.