Another world is indeed possible, says PACJA

The Pan African climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) has again brought the world’s attention to Africa as thousands of movements from across the globe gathered in Montreal, Canada in the ongoing World Social Forum (FSM2016) holding from August 9-14, 2016. The 2016 Forum is with an overarching theme “Another World Is Possible.”

 

The goal of the WSF 2016 is to gather tens of thousands of people from groups in civil society, organizations and social movements who want to build a sustainable and inclusive world, where every person and every people has its place and can make its voice heard.

The Alliance besides joining the global march organized by the Forum, made a case for Africa on several burning issues at various global organized events at the Forum. Some of the issues the Alliance took to the global scene at this event include Climate Justice and the Fight For Peoples’ Right to Food, Water and Land; Transforming the Energy Systems for People and Communities; Climate Justice, Land Rights and Food Security in Africa in the context of Paris Agreement and Sustainable Development Goals; Implementation of SDGs, Accountability and the Role of Civil Society Organizations.

The Alliance called on world leaders to listen to the voices of the people and ACT NOW in the interest of our planet and save the world from further humanitarian and environmental crisis.

“To achieve the goal of keeping the global temperature rise to well below 2⁰C and pursuing efforts to keeping it below 1.5⁰C as enshrined in the Paris Agreement and to further achieve the objective of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it will require a lot of sacrifices in the way we live” says Samson Samuel Ogallah of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance. “The sacrifice will require switching from the current unsustainable production and consumption lifestyle especially by the industrialized countries as the business as usual scenario will lead the world to a 3⁰C and above scenario by 2030 thereby eroding any gain that may have been made from the implementation of SDGs by 2030” Ogallah added.

“Civil society fought hard to get the human rights language into the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), they must now work even harder  to ensure its operationalization beyond the adoption of the SDGs by governments across the world” says Mr. SavioCarvalho of the  Amnesty International at the Forum.

In his submission during the Forum, MithikaMwenda, the Secretary General of PACJA called for global solidarity among civil society organizations to ensure that they hold governments accountable to their commitments in the SDGs and Paris Agreement. They era of paying lip service to commitment governments signed up to is over especially  in the light of Paris Agreement that have spelt out clear role for all Parties in the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), everyone and all Parties now have a role to play, Mithika added.