When I was first invited to participate in the Climate Generation cohort attending COP 28, I was especially interested in learning more about the global impact of climate change on food systems, especially with regard to Indigenous peoples. Once I figured out the logistical challenges of navigating Expo City in Dubai, I spent much of my time at the Food & Health pavilion as well as the nearby Indigenous peoples pavilion. My hope was to augment my work in food sovereignty with a deeper, global understanding of the challenges posed by climate change. And to see the negotiating process up close as a way of clarifying my own responsibility to the health of the earth.
While I appreciated the learning experience that was provided by each session that I attended, there were a few peak experiences that helped reshape my understanding of climate change and the myriad ways in which we, as individuals, can help mitigate these changes.
COP 28 provided a global perspective through the United Nations, as well as a lens into work being done by various governmental levels, from state to city to organization. Since my return home, I’ve been thinking about how I can help translate my understanding of this multi-level, international movement into individual and community based action, especially when there is already widespread fear and paralysis about the future.
One of the experiences that offered pragmatic, useful insight into the negotiating process was an informal conversation our group had with Abby’s sister, who was a climate negotiator for the US. She helped clarify the seemingly overwhelming challenge of achieving consensus among 196 countries with different cultures and very different needs. Within that context, and despite all the politics, I could see the value of this process as it allowed for countries to advocate and educate about their particular climate challenges. Given the political reality of countries failing to achieve their NDCs or even slow down fossil fuel consumption, it also seems unlikely that the United Nations will find the political will to move fast enough to achieve the 1.5 degree goal, and to do it in a just and equitable manner with regard to developing and Indigenous countries. So how can other levels of government, other sectors, artists, farmers, teachers, youth, elders, all contribute to making changes that don’t wait for the UN to fix this for us?
How do I translate the goals of phasing out fossil fuels, empowering Indigenous communities to lead, and limiting warming to 1.5 degrees into my own life?
When I attended the session promoting Minnesota as a model that was hosted by the America Is All In pavilion, it was highly gratifying to learn more about Minnesota’s commitment to a goal of 100% renewable energy sourced electricity by 2040. But the panel was mostly white and completely ignored both the needs and contributions of Indigenous and people of color in Minnesota. Especially disturbing was the statistic quoted in opening remarks that the Midwest would rank 5th in the world for emissions, bypassing many countries, only to have the role of agriculture not mentioned at all. When I asked how much of Minnesota’s emissions are the result of agriculture and what is being done to hold that sector accountable, the panelist from Fresh Energy reassured me that she was on the governor’s advisory panel. Somehow, that didn’t answer my question. Another interesting statistic from that session: one acre of solar panels will generate 18x the amount of energy produced by an acre of corn to be used as ethanol.
One of COP’s great highlights for me turned out to be Soil day at the Food pavilion, with an entire day of programming dedicated to the topic of Soil. I listened to the recordings for most of the sessions, feeling somewhat obsessive in learning as much as I could about the connection between Soil, Nature and People (the overall theme for the day). There was a strong call for Soil to be included in the global stocktake as it was increasingly important to monitor the capacity for countries to maintain stable, healthy food systems. Soil stores 3x more carbon than the atmosphere and healthy soil has the ability to sequester 15 billion tons of carbon, which means that soil plays an important role in the climate crisis.
I also learned that half of the world’s land could be unusable within decades and that we can only achieve a sustainable food system by improving soil health. Soil health unites all food producers because it offers the means to deal with the growing food crisis as well as the ongoing biodiversity crisis. Most importantly, a transition to regenerative agriculture practices that maintain healthy soil, healthy crops, and healthy animals has the potential to help produce 40% more food by 2050 with zero emissions. Now that’s an inspiring goal!
By the end of the week, my head was packed full of ideas, statistics, perspectives, fears, hopes, and new insights. On my last day at COP, I decided to take a break and finally visit the Green Zone. That’s when I wandered into a series of small moments and experiences that would help me redefine and clarify my relationship to healing and protecting the health of the earth and responding to the challenges posed by climate change.
Almost immediately, I was drawn to a large wire and paper sculpture of a massive bee swarm, a piece that promoted Beethechange, an international organization that is supporting bees and pollinators. I was invited to make an origami bee that I could attach to the tail section of the sculpture. The first step was to write a climate intention on the small paper. I wrote, “I will take care of my relatives,” as providing habitat for all pollinators, and especially native bees, is the primary focus of my gardens. Shifting from a week of long meetings to hands-on artmaking was a reminder of the immense power of art to tell this story by emphasizing what we cherish, rather than always trying to motivate people with statistics and reports that can fuel fear and anxiety. This was the core belief I carried with me to COP, that we are strongest when we are protecting what we love.
From there I went in search of the Expo City urban farm that I had been hearing about. On a landscape formed primarily from sand and heat, the garden was impressive, with row upon row of healthy, vibrant vegetables, from kale and tomatoes to corn. Sensing my interest, the farmer came over and we bonded by strolling the rows and appreciating each plant. We talked about the biofertilizer he used that was produced from chicken manure at the farm’s primary location, an hour from Dubai. I asked why he mounded his rows, because I had seen a waffle method used in the arid climate of Arizona to retain water. He explained that the irrigation system along each plant stem could water roots more easily when they were raised. Along our walk, he told me that he was originally a wheat farmer from Syria, had lost everything in the war, and was starting over as a farmer in Dubai. When we passed the hydroponics building, he shrugged and said, it’s only good for growing leaves. What he really meant was that you can’t grow wheat in hydroponics. He added, even if we go to the moon, we need to build soil. And that formed the second small epiphany of my day, that I want to focus on soil as one of the relatives that I care for by improving the health of the soil in my garden. There’s no better way to learn than by getting your hands dirty. By building soil in my own garden, I can extend that understanding to Minnesota’s agricultural issues (5th in emissions!), building food sovereignty on reservations, and to the challenges facing small farmers globally.
I also wanted to connect one last time with the Indigenous Peoples pavilion so I attended a presentation by NDN about their work to establish LandBack as an international movement. Four incredibly smart, passionate, and dedicated Indigenous women spoke eloquently about the critical importance of reclaiming Indigenous land as the keeper and foundation for place-based Indigenous knowledge. One of them, an NDN grantee, spoke about the seed sovereignty work she was engaged in back on her Haudenosaunee reservation. I approached her afterwards to thank her for speaking on behalf of the seeds. As we talked, she told me that her mentor, Terry Lynn Brant, had just passed a few days earlier. I was shocked by the news as I had worked with Terry Lynn and was indebted to her for the seed knowledge she had shared with me. It was such a poignant reminder that we only have so much time on this earth to do our work. Terry Lynn will be remembered as a generous and brilliant, traditional leader.
At the end of the afternoon, my last official stop was the press conference for the Rights of Plants, hosted by WECAN. The Rights of Nature Movement offers a systemic framework for defending biodiversity, communities, and our climate. This growing movement challenges the dominant society perception of nature as a resource to be owned and exploited. Supporters feel that legal protections for Nature, similar to human rights, will persuade humanity to take care of their relatives, recognizing that we are all interconnected. To me, this is a fundamental expression of Indigenous thought, or as the Dakota say, Mitakuye Owasin, we are all related. This is why Indigenous people need to be at the forefront of the climate change movement, leading the way with traditional ecological knowledge.
And finally, as I continue to think about the ways in which I can weave these various threads of change more deeply into my life–bees, soil health, seed sovereignty and LandBack, and the Rights of Plants—I am also grateful for the open-ended process and creative space provided by Climate Generation.
By not imposing burdensome or rigid expectations, they allowed room for exploration and learning, allowing us to move within a creative process.
The deadlines we did have provided structure for reflection, which was also appreciated, given the overwhelming nature of the experience. I felt respected as an artist and given the room I needed to forge my own relationship to climate change and COP 28. This experience will continue to ripple through my writing, my garden, and my community. Pidamaye ye!
Diane Wilson is a Dakota writer, educator, and bog steward, who has published four award-winning books as well as numerous essays. Her novel, The Seed Keeper, received the 2022 Minnesota Book Award for Fiction, and her memoir, Spirit Car: Journey to a Dakota Past, won a 2006 Minnesota Book Award and was selected for the 2012 One Minneapolis One Read program. She has also published a nonfiction book, Beloved Child: A Dakota Way of Life, a middle-grade biography, Ella Cara Deloria: Dakota Language Protector, and co-authored a picture book—Where We Come From. Wilson is a Mdewakanton descendent, enrolled on the Rosebud Reservation. She is the former Executive Director for Dream of Wild Health, an Indigenous non-profit farm, and the Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance, a national coalition of tribes and organizations working to create sovereign food systems for Native people.
Diane is a Climate Generation Window Into COP delegate for COP28. To learn more, we encourage you to meet the full delegation and subscribe to the Window Into COP digest.
The post FOOD FOR THOUGHT appeared first on Climate Generation.
After witnessing and hearing stories of Pacific islands’ vulnerability to climate change, senior climate officials have promised to strengthen efforts to limit global warming to 1.5C, despite an expected overshoot, and to help the region adapt to rising seas and other impacts.
More than 30 world leaders, ministers, climate negotiators and international development bankers travelled to the sinking atoll nation of Tuvalu on Tuesday before attending the pre-COP31 talks in Fiji, where schoolchildren told them about the effects warming-driven droughts, heatwaves and storms are having on their education.
Australia and the Pacific nations hoped to use the pre-COP to reinforce the urgency of tackling climate change to the officials from around 50 countries who travelled to the region. Fiji’s climate minister, Lynda Tabuya, told a closing press conference on Thursday they had wanted to “bring decision-makers to the climate frontlines”.
Many of those decision-makers said they had been moved by what they had seen and heard this week, and their speeches emphasised the importance of limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, a key goal of the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
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Pacific leaders rail at climate finance failures after pre-COP trip to Tuvalu
Island nations seek invest in their own Pacific Resilience Facility, as they struggle with the red-tape of international climate funds -
New Zealand accused of breaching EU trade deal over climate rollbacks
The EU’s climate trade rules face their first major test after a green group alleged New Zealand violated binding environmental provisions under its trade deal with the bloc
In September, a UN report acknowledged that the 1.5C threshold will be breached but said temperatures could still be brought back down to that level by the end of the century with stepped-up climate action.
A month ago, Türkiye‘s COP31 President Murat Kurum told a press conference in the northern Turkish city of Trabzon that limiting global warming to 1.5C “does not really look possible”, adding that “around 1.5C, that will be a success”.
But after seeing the “anxiety” of children and mothers in Tuvalu caused by rising sea levels, Kurum told reporters in Fiji that 1.5C is a “matter of survival – the survival of cultures, history, memories, your homeland, your homes – it’s that important.”
“The 1.5C target is in jeopardy and we do not have a single minute, a single day to lose,” he added through an interpreter.
Jacobo Ocharan, head of political strategies at Climate Action Network International, warned that “words of concern will not protect anyone”. “The Pacific has shown the world what is at stake. Now governments must show they are ready to act,” he said. “[COP31 in] Antalya must deliver decisions that change people’s lives for the better.”
$1.5 billion for 1.5C
In Fiji, Kurum echoed the call of Australia and Pacific nations for contributions to the fledgling Pacific Resilience Facility (PRF), which aims to use the returns on its investments to fund community climate adaptation projects like water storage, building sea walls and protecting homes from storms. “$1.5 billion for 1.5 degrees will save the Pacific,” he said. “It’s that easy. Life will continue in Tuvalu. Children will be smiling again.”
Sitting next to him, Fiji’s Tabuya said she was “encouraged” by his words. “$1.5 billion for 1.5. We will hold COP 31 to that,” she said. The PRF has been promised just under $200 million so far – including about $15 million pledged by European and Pacific governments at pre-COP – and is aiming for $500 million by COP31. It has a longer-term target of mobilising $1.5 billion in capital.
After Pacific leaders on Tuesday aired a litany of concerns about the barriers to accessing the global climate finance system, Kurum joined in at Thursday’s press conference. “Justice in climate finance is essential,” he said. “Resources must reach those in need in a timely and accessible manner, not through a lot of red-tape, and we cannot accept that the same countries should always bear the burden.”
Plan for easier access to climate finance
Australian climate and energy minister Chris Bowen, who is COP31’s president of negotiations, also lamented that “the countries that need the finance the most get it the least”. He said he would ask governments and multilateral development banks to support an access to finance plan for small island states and the world’s poorest nations, launched by Australia on Thursday.
The plan says that while there has been progress in making it easier and quicker to obtain international climate funding, “multiple persistent challenges have continued to limit access to climate finance for developing countries”.
It adds that the amounts available are insufficient to meet climate goals and stresses the need for “grant-based and highly concessional financing”, especially for adaptation and responding to loss and damage. The plan proposes an annual high-level forum on climate finance access to track implementation.
The pre-COP summit closed with an emotional plea from Fiji’s host minister Tabuya. Fighting back tears before finally succumbing, she asked delegates to “carry something of the Pacific with you”.
“Remember the people you met, the stories you heard and why we gathered. This pre-COP draws to a close tonight. Our responsibility does not,” she said to applause.
The post Pre-COP draws attention to Pacific’s climate plight and 1.5C goal appeared first on Climate Home News.
Pre-COP draws attention to Pacific’s climate plight and 1.5C goal
Climate Change
Australia’s climate credibility tested at Pacific Pre-COP talks, as High Court fossil fuel ruling puts government on notice
NADI, FIJI Thursday 8 October 2026 — As the Pacific Pre-COP talks wrap up and Australia prepares to take the reins of COP31 Negotiations in Türkiye next month, Greenpeace Australia Pacific says the government is on notice over fossil fuel expansion and exports, and must accelerate action to align with a 1.5°C pathway.
Following yesterday’s landmark High Court ruling that the climate impacts of coal and gas exports must be considered by New South Wales planning authorities, Greenpeace Australia Pacific is calling on the Albanese government to find the “courage, leadership and grit” to chart a new course away from fossil fuels.
High res images and video from yesterday’s ‘Keep 1.5C Alive’ flotilla in Nadi can be found here
Speaking from Nadi, Shiva Gounden, Head of Pacific at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said:
“The outcomes of this week’s talks are a drop in the ocean given the scale of need, and urgency of the crisis our communities are facing. It is like taking a glass of water to a burning house if we do not urgently act to address the root cause of the existential threat facing Tuvalu, Fiji and all Pacific countries: fossil fuel expansion.
“The Electrification Pledge must end fossil fuel dependence, not be an end in itself — its ultimate success depends on ensuring electricity comes from renewable sources that displace fossil fuels and align with a 1.5°C pathway. It must be underpinned by justice and backed by finance flowing from polluters to communities.
“Limiting global warming to 1.5°C is a non-negotiable survival line for humanity and Australia must act. The landmark climate advisory ruling from the ICJ is clear — 1.5°C is the moral, the scientific and the legal limit. Continuing down the fossil fuel path, and failing to align efforts with limiting warming to 1.5°C, is a breach of our international legal obligations, and risks making Australia liable for future reparations from climate-vulnerable nations.”
Also in Nadi, Dr Simon Bradshaw, COP31 Lead and climate expert at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “The Pacific was never going to be a mere backdrop for Australia in its role as incoming chair of the COP31 climate talks, but where its credibility and commitment to climate leadership would be tested.
“Here we see communities fighting for their survival and doing everything possible to hold the line on returning warming to 1.5°C. When governments profess to take their concerns seriously, only to then throw more fuel on the fire, the pain and sadness is visceral.
“This week the High Court of Australia recognised what the Federal Government refuses to — that Australia is responsible for the climate damage of our fossil fuel exports and if governments don’t act, the courts will intervene. The message is simple: this is not someone else’s problem, it is ours.
“We must now follow other countries in developing a national roadmap away from fossil fuels that ensures a managed wind-down of fossil fuel production, including exports, in line with our legal obligation to help return warming to 1.5°C.”
ENDS
Media contact: Kate O’Callaghan in Nadi on +61 406 231 892 (Whatsapp/Signal)
A Dutch NGO has filed the first climate complaint under the European Union’s trade rules, arguing that New Zealand violated the environmental provisions of its free trade agreement with the bloc by weakening its climate regulations.
The case will test whether binding climate provisions in the EU’s free trade deals can be enforced to hold governments accountable to their climate obligations, experts told Climate Home News.
The EU-New Zealand free trade agreement, which came into force in 2024, was the first in the world to include legally-binding climate provisions and possible sanctions for violating them, as the EU seeks to use its trade partnerships to advance greater environmental protection.
Under the deal, both parties committed not to weaken their environmental law to promote trade or investment and to “refrain from any action or omission that materially defeats the object and purpose of the Paris Agreement”.
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International trade linked to 20% of global emissions – but imports ignored
Researchers say governments should discuss how to tackle emissions linked to globally traded goods and services, especially in large importing countries
At the time the agreement was signed, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the agreement included “unprecedented social and climate commitments”. But experts warned it was unclear how the Paris Agreement provisions would be enforced.
The EU included a similar “trade and sustainable development” clause in 14 other bilateral trade deals in recent years, with several others, including with China, awaiting ratification or being negotiated.
Climate activists at the Dutch NGO Both ENDS argue that the New Zealand government breached these terms by reopening its waters to offshore oil and gas exploration, releasing a climate plan that barely requires any emissions reductions, and passing a law that prevents corporations from getting sued over climate damages.
“Here, we have a so-called gold standard for free trade agreements with sustainability provisions but we have a trading partner that is doing exactly the opposite: regressing, as all the evidence points to, away from the Paris Agreement,” said Marius Troost, a senior policy advisor at Both ENDS.
Can the EU enforce its climate trading rules?
The Dutch environmental group filed the complaint under the EU Commission’s Single Entry Point, a mechanism that allows civil society to request enforcement of the bloc’s trade commitments.
The EU-New Zealand trade deal includes the possibility of suspending beneficial trading arrangements between the two parties in response to serious violations of its climate provisions. This, Troost said, is a “unique” tool to enforce both parties’ obligations under the deal.
“This is an opportunity for the EU and New Zealand to show that they are actually serious about these commitments,” he told Climate Home News.
A spokesperson for New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade denied any violations of the agreement and said the government hadn’t received formal notice of the complaint. The country, they said, “takes its commitments under the NZ-EU Free Trade Agreement seriously, including the agreement’s environment and climate-related provisions”.
An EU Commission spokesperson said it will start a preliminary assessment of the complaint and engage with NGO Both ENDS. “Sustainability is a central pillar of the EU-New Zealand relationship,” they added.
The EU is New Zealand’s second-largest trading partner after China, with about 14% of the country’s exports going to the European market. Agricultural products like meat, diary, fruit and vegetables are the country’s biggest exports to Europe.
New Zealand is ‘having its cake and eating it’
Eliza Prestidge-Oldfield, a senior legal researcher at the New Zealand-based Environmental Law Initiative, which is supporting Both ENDS’s claim, told Climate Home News that if the EU upholds the complaint, both parties would begin a negotiation process.
“The idea is to try and resolve this positively with the New Zealand government acknowledging areas where it needs to change its actions in order to comply with the agreement, and get that change in place as soon as possible,” she said.
But New Zealand’s right-wing coalition government said it won’t take any directives from foreign actors regarding its policies. Trade minister Todd McClay told local media that it was “not for overseas countries, organisations or lobby groups to tell New Zealand how to meet its obligations”.