Thousands of people are dancing in the streets of Belém, an Amazonian city chosen to host COP30, where nation-state representatives have gathered to discuss how they will confront the climate crisis. Wearing blue garments and straw hats, the people move synchronised to the beats of batucada in a complex pattern of movements. A sea of people in unison expressing their cultural ancestry. The 70,000 person march claims that “we are the solution” in response to the summit of nation-states. They are declaring that the COP is not the solution to the climate crisis, but that the people can be.
On the other side of this colonial city, a very different scene is playing out in the main COP30 complex. Many acres of trees were cut down to build it and as you navigate its huge, air-conditioned halls, with fake grass and lines of people waiting to receive a loan from a “green” bank, you are left with a mixture of feelings. But you don’t feel like you’re fighting the climate crisis by being there. It becomes even more confusing when you are handed “clean Amazonian water” in an aluminium can as a welcome gift.
Returning to the crowd participating in the Global Climate March, they all claim to have gathered at the anti-COP event, also known as the People’s Summit (Cúpula dos Povos), to find solutions to the climate crisis. If you ask the people in the blue zone at the COP complex, they will probably say the same thing: that they are there to solve the climate crisis.
The Academy of Democratic Modernity, the Women’s Movement of Kurdistan, and the Tev-Eko (Ecological Movement of the Kurdish diaspora) decided to go to Belém to find out.
What are the Peoples’ Summit and COP30?
On the third day of the summit, it started raining heavily, and the force of the rain made the buildings shake. A few hours later, we received news that various areas of Belém had flooded, with water reaching the streets around the COP30 complex. Once again, we were reminded that the climate crisis is not an abstract nightmare but a reality that all parts of the world are currently suffering from. It is safe to say that the climate crisis is the most pressing issue of our time.
In the face of this crisis, even nation states feel compelled to act. Therefore, in 1992, they formed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and since then, they have held 30 summits to negotiate greenhouse gas reduction targets.
As the climate crisis has become more evident and urgent over the years criticism of the COP summits has become harsher. Perceived as a way to address the climate crisis it is becoming increasingly obvious that they are not succeeding. This sentiment has given rise to the “anti-COP” movement, which began taking shape after the 2009 Copenhagen summit. The first anti-COP summit, the Global Meeting for Climate and Life, was held in Oaxaca, Mexico, in opposition to the COP29 summit that happened in Baku, Azerbaijan last year.
For two years, the “Copola dos Povos” has organised the anti-COP events gathering more than 1,200 organizations to sign their manifesto, which calls for a solution to the increasingly dysfunctional COP. The People’s Summit was visited by 15,000 delegates, mainly from Brazil, but with a presence felt from every part of the world.
The stated reason why Belém was chosen as the host city for the latest COP edition was that it is the “Gateway to the Amazon,” but the historical significance of this statement must also be considered. Belém played a strategic role in the colonization of the Amazon region. Founded on January 12, 1616, it was established as a military stronghold to prevent other colonizing powers from accessing the treasures that the Portuguese had claimed. All indigenous communities in the region are well aware of this historical fact, which is one of the reasons why many people felt like kicking in the door of COP30 and storming its halls on the second day of the summit.
How does the Peoples’ Summit work?
The Peoples’ Summit brings together a variety of social movements and communities who claim that the COP has proven its inability to solve the climate crisis, and that the solution lies within the communities themselves. During the six-day counter-summit, discussion panels were held on a number of key topics. General and topic-based assemblies were held, and by the end, a declaration was drafted based on the ongoing processes at the hundreds of meetings held. The declaration was handed over to the COP30 presidency in a ceremony, and later discussed at the People’s Embassy, which was part of the COP30 area.
In addition to its formal methods, the Peoples’ Summit provides an important space for social movements from around the world to connect and build stronger bonds for a more unified, global struggle against the ecological crisis.
How does the COP work?
The COP (Conference of the Parties) is the decision-making body of the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change). It is a place where the “parties” negotiate. Each member state sends a delegation that includes state representatives and members of civil society, such as indigenous groups and NGOs. These negotiations define new goals for reducing toxic emissions.
In parallel, the COP has also become a place where grants and funds are handed out or promised to the different organizations represented at the summit. This has been heavily criticized since it allows the countries that emit the most pollution to buy their way out of criticism. Even from a capitalist perspective, the necessary annual investment to reach the targets is 7.4 trillion USD, yet only about 1.6 trillion USD is granted annually. However, this assumes that we can buy our way out of the climate crisis.
What is the climate crisis?
In his five-volume work titled “The Manifesto of the Democratic Civilization” Abdullah Öcalan addresses the importance of ecology, systemic attacks against nature, and nature’s rebellion against these attacks in the quest for a free and ecological life. For example, he seriously questions the role of modern science in our current social problems. The question is posed: If science was supposed to illuminate and offer solutions to our problems, why are we in such a catastrophic state? Science has actually become a tool for legitimizing the capitalist system’s attack on nature through institutions such as the COP. Supposedly true facts and science are being used to destroy life itself and turn nature into a source of profit. Therefore, a deep crisis in the concept of truth must underlie the entire climate crisis issue.
A system that preys on nature in exchange for profit must first separate human existence from its birthplace: nature itself. If society feels connected to nature, how could society be tasked with exploiting and destroying nature for profit? Thus, the primary objective of the civilizational system is to separate humanity from nature. To achieve this, the system has identified women as the primary target. She is the historical safeguard of life. She gives birth, gathers society around her, communicates language and wisdom to the next generation, and protects the balance between society and nature. Therefore, she is the first obstacle that the patriarchal system must destroy to exploit nature.
Öcalan describes the interwoven relationship between society and nature, explaining that this link is a primary target of the profiteering system: “We have to understand that the alienation from other humans that develops within society due to domination brings with it alienation from nature, and the two become intertwined. Society itself is, in its essence, an ecological phenomenon. By ecology, we mean the physical and biological nature on which the formation of society is based.”1 He further emphasizes that society is not separate from ecology; rather, society is a creation of ecology. Thus, to attack nature is to attack society itself. Öcalan continues explaining the magnitude of the consequences of these layers of separation: “Humans can always re-regulate the internal order of society, because social reality is a human creation, but the same is not true of the environment. If important environmental links are broken as a result of the actions of groups organized around the profit and capital monopoly operating above the society from which it emerged, evolutionary disasters in a chain-like reaction might expose the environment and society to mass destruction.”2
In other words, the climate crisis cannot be reduced to a question of capital investment. Rather, it has a historical root in the attempt of the civilizational system to change what has been true of societies for thousands of years: that nature is our birthplace and the condition for life and society to exist. In the face of the increasingly evident impact of this historical lie, with the effects of the climate crisis becoming more pressing every day, the capitalist system tries to confront the crisis with the tools it knows: capital. Therefore, the COP summits become spaces where states can buy time from social movements and capitalists can turn the climate question into a new investment opportunity, while system transformation remains far from the agenda. The presence of 1,600 fossil fuel lobbyists at the summit makes this very clear.
“[…] the relationship between the chaos experienced by the capitalist social system and the environmental disaster is dialectical. Fundamental contradictions with nature can only be
overcome by breaking with the system.”3
The Way Out of the Climate Crisis
When indigenous communities marched through the streets of Belém and into the Blue Zone of COP30, they chanted, “We are the solution.” This highlights their vital role in the struggle against the climate crisis. The relationship between nature and society has been broken, and we must repair the damage. Öcalan echoes this idea when he writes: “The rationality or morality of a social system that does not integrate us into nature cannot be defended.”4 Without a doubt, the most important topic for any summit aiming to heal nature is the integration of society into nature. Rather than maintaining the current system and accepting “the lesser evil,” we must deeply question that system and build a life system and society that is in tune with the needs of nature and learns to become part of it again.
“When we rid ourselves of modernity’s hellish shackles, namely profiteering, industrialism and the nation-state, we will be able to live a meaningful life again.”5 We are not looking for a new business model, a trick to convince our followers, or a grant for an interesting project. We are searching for meaning and trying to rediscover the beauty of life. To achieve this, Öcalan continues: “The defining feature of this phase is the beginning of a break from state-oriented life in general and from modern capitalist life in particular.”6 This transformation of life into an ecological, meaningful existence can only be achieved through systematic change from the ground up. The state’s paradigm has nothing to offer on this journey. In fact, the state seeks every way out of a movement toward real, systemic change, and it will fight real climate justice until the very end, using every trick in the book.
The Kurdistan Freedom Movement proposes building a new system inspired by ancestral societies that are already showing us the way. The movement aims to rediscover and incorporate an ecological society into our time. “All the talk about ecological equilibrium and an ecological society only begins to make sense with the transition from a society alienated from nature and the environment, permeated by power since the onset of civilization, to a socialist society.”7 In its purest sense, socialism is the reunification of all the separated entities of our world. It is the unification of humanity with nature, woman with man, and the healing of our inner beings—uniting our inner and external worlds. In short, it is the reunification of our emotions, thoughts, and actions.
Could the People’s Summit solve the climate crisis?
Any society ready to challenge the status quo of the global capitalist system has the potential to be part of the solution. In order to fight against the capitalist system, we must rebuild our global village and the relationships within and between our communities. The Peoples’ Summit showed a lot of promise in this regard. “One of the tasks facing us is to deepen the already existing organizations that are working to stop natural environmental disasters in all respects and make them an integral part of democratic society, as well as to build solidarity with the feminist and freedom-oriented women’s movement. Intensifying and organizing environmental consciousness is one of the most important activities of democratization.”8 At the Peoples’ Summit, we saw a strong women’s movement at the forefront of much of the activity, as well as a strong presence of indigenous communities, farmers, and Afro-descendant communities.
While there were many promising aspects of the Peoples’ Summit, we are even more concerned with what happened before and what will happen after. As has been said, “We are the solution.” Therefore, we must reach a point where we are not merely mobilizing around an initiative created by nation-states as an anti-COP. Rather, we must transform our lives and political processes so that our entire existence becomes a great people’s summit. We must build our local communities and connect communities from the local to the global level. We are truly the solution if we achieve a level of global organization that can think and act clearly and synchronously. The climate crisis is global and systemic, so the people’s solution must be too.
It was recently announced that next COP summit will be held in Turkey. It will be interesting to see how the Kurdistan Freedom Movement responds to this challenge. Given the authoritarian character of the Turkish state, will it be possible for them to be there? Will they accept a strong presence of the Kurdish movement? Will they accept any peoples’ movement that could challenge the COP’s role? Will the Kurdistan Freedom Movement regard this as a historic opportunity to build bridges with ecological movements in Turkey and around the world? Or will their refusal to participate be a political stance to deny the COP the initiative in the global struggle against the climate crisis? We will have to wait and see.
1Beyond State, Power and Violence (2023), A. Öcalan
2The Sociology of Freedom (2020), A. Öcalan
3Öcalan (n 1)
4ibid
5Civilization: The Age of Masked Gods and Disguised Kings (2015), A. Öcalan
6Öcalan (n 1)
7ibid
8ibid