Fairtrade Foundation: Stand Up For Climate Justice
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‘We want to tell world leaders to fulfil their promises and recognise we are part of the solution to climate change.’ |
The words of Fairtrade cocoa farmer Benjamin-Francklin Kouamé, urging leaders at the COP26 UN climate summit to keep their promises. Including a key commitment to fund small-scale farmers taking on a climate crisis that threatens their immediate future.
When you signed your Community Declaration for Climate Justice, you told politicians that people in your area care about keeping these promises. Thank you.
But this week, we saw worrying reports the UK government will not deliver on it's national climate funding pledge [1].
If the UK breaks this promise, it's communities like Benjamin's who live with the consequences. Communities who grow much of the world's food, but face the worst effects of climate change, the global cost-of-living crisis and a deeply unfair global trade system.
With these promises at risk of being broken, can you take action again by sharing your Community Declaration and encouraging others to sign?
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In a joint letter with 91 other organisations, the Fairtrade Foundation is urging the Prime Minister to keep our nation's promise and stand up for Climate Justice.
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Read the Climate Action Network's joint letter, which Fairtrade Foundation has signed and supported. |
As we state in the letter ‘Climate finance is not a handout, but a debt we owe to countries and communities that have been made vulnerable to climate change.’
The UK has a responsibility to act, having benefited economically from mass burning of fossil fuels and a deeply unfair global trade system, itself a legacy of colonialism, for centuries. But our nation also has a real opportunity to play a positive role in building a fairer, greener future.
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‘To mitigate climate change we have been planting shade trees, but it’s not an immediate solution…if the wealthy nations deliver on their pledged funding, we will be able to practice more sustainable farming.’ Aimable Nshimiye, Fairtrade coffee farmer, Rwanda. Hear more from Aimable on our Youtube channel. |
Despite doing the least to cause the climate crisis, many small-scale farmers across Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Pacific are leading the way on building a sustainable, fairer and greener future for food, for the planet, and for their communities.
But as Aimable explains, our deeply unfair global trade system and the failure of wealthy nations to deliver on their climate funding promises denies many the resources to scale-up this vital work.
If the UK and other wealthy nations are serious about finding a solution to the climate emergency, this needs to change. Please share your support for the Community Declaration for Climate Justice.
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Choosing Fairtrade is choosing climate action
But we don’t need to wait for the government to act to choose Climate Justice. When you choose Fairtrade, you are choosing a fairer deal for communities facing up to the worst realities of climate change every day.
Many Fairtrade farmers choose to invest the extra income they earn from Fairtrade on a wide range of projects aimed at adapting to climate change and protecting bio-diversity, whether that’s in training, crop diversification or tree planting.
While studies have shown Fairtrade can support farmers to adapt to climate change, due both to higher incomes and the chance to share knowledge. [2]
So as we urge the government to keep their promises, we must keep taking action ourselves. And let’s keep spreading the word that choosing Fairtrade is choosing a fairer future for people and the planet.
Best wishes,
Stefan,
Campaigns Team, Fairtrade Foundation
[1] ‘Revealed: UK plans to drop flagship £11.6bn climate pledge,’ The Guardian
[2] The Impact of Fair Trade on Smallholders' Capacity to Adapt to Climate Change, Borsky and Spata