Jakarta — Climate justice activists issued a powerful plea during a press conference on Monday, June 16, on the sidelines of the UN climate negotiations, linking the escalating humanitarian crisis in Gaza with global environmental and political injustice.
Rachitaa Gupta, speaking on behalf of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice, condemned what she described as a “genocide in Palestine,” criticising continued Israeli military actions and accusing Western countries—such as the US, UK, France, and Germany—of complicity.
She said that “as Israel continues its brutal campaign of bombing, massacres and starvation against the innocent civilian population in Gaza, many of the actors and States like the US, UK, Europe, France, Germany, that are directly responsible for these crimes walk the halls of the climate negotiations. We are here to remind them that you cannot separate climate Justice and the cause of Palestinian liberation”.
The press conference featured voices from affected communities, including Mohammed Usrof from the Palestine Institute for Climate Strategy. He described the dire conditions in Gaza, with civilians starving under siege, hundreds killed daily, and infrastructure—including solar panels and farmland—bombed into ruin.
“This is not just a genocide, it’s also an ecocide,” Usrof said. He cited recent research estimating that the environmental damage caused by the war in Gaza is equivalent to the annual emissions of over 100 countries combined.
He also called for a global energy embargo in solidarity with Palestinians and urged climate negotiators to rethink the foundations of climate talks. “If we care about human life, then we must call out the institutions and governments complicit in this destruction,” he said.
Usrof said that “what remains of the energy transition after forced blackouts, Palestinians in Gaza resorted to using solar panels for their electricity, proving the power and having sources that are not reliant on fossil fuel extraction”, proving the people’s resilience and resistance during horrible atrocities. However, he added that even those solar panels were bombed as well.
He also pointed out that over 82% of crop land has been destroyed, and how the bombardments caused soil filled with toxic materials and heavy metals, making it nearly “impossible to grow anything that isn’t potentially harmful to human health. The air is thick with the same toxic chemicals, harmful to both the environment and human health.”
The speakers emphasised that environmental justice must include resistance to militarism and occupation, and called for an urgent moral reckoning within the climate community. (nsh)
Banner photo: civil society press conference at the side of the climate talks in Bonn, Germany, 16 June 2025 (UNFCCC webcast screenshot)
