Systems thinking is more urgent than ever: A conversation on understanding climate finance flows within the broader economic system

Last month, members of our feminist networks followed and participated in the most recent UNFCCC process in Bonn, while other colleagues attended the Eurodad “reboot the system” conference talking about economic justice as a whole, including tax and trade — all things that impact climate finance.

WEDO Director Bridget Burns sat down for a conversation with WEDO’s Tara Daniel and Equidad de Género’s Emilia Reyes to discuss how we can better understand climate finance flows within the broader economic system — in order to inform our advocacy and ensure our solutions have a systems lens.

Watch the video of the conversation here, or read the transcript below.

Bridget: Today we’re going to be talking about climate finance as a whole, economic justice as a whole — particularly through the lens of one of our new acronyms under the UN climate change negotiations: the NCQG, or the “new collective quantified goal” on climate finance. And certainly we know as feminists as we talk about addressing a new collective goal on climate finance, we have to understand climate finance flows within the broader system in order to be transformative in what we’re advocating for. My first question is for Tara: What is the process for the NCQG? Why is it important and how can we bring in some of the aspects of climate justice?

Tara: I love that you used the word transformative — because this is the opportunity we have here with the new collective quantified goal. This is the most substantive discussion we have had on climate finance since the Paris Agreement was signed. It’s a multi-year process for all of the Parties under the UNFCCC to agree on a new collective goal that we are going to put actual numbers on beginning in 2025.

We’re doing this in the context of recognizing that the previous goal that dates back to 2009 was inadequate on two fronts: It did not provide enough climate finance to meet the climate ambition we know is necessary for us to achieve the Paris Agreement, and it was a broken promise — as the money wasn’t even delivered.

So how do we set a new goal that will be delivered, that must be delivered? We’re [The UNFCCC is] doing that through a series of 12 expert dialogues that have just begun and will continue throughout 2024. We have to ensure that our voices as feminists are coming into this process, knowing that we have to be talking not only about the quantitative number of the goal but what the shape of that finance should look like. We have to talk about grants-based finance. We have to talk about adaptation. We have to talk about all of these elements, not only about climate justice and ensuring that money is going to flow directly to communities who need it, but also about economic justice — because our financial systems are interlinked. Every time that we embrace a financial structure that is based on debt, on austerity, we are undermining the possibility of actually achieving the Paris Agreement and the goals we have set for our planet.

Bridget: That’s perfect, Tara. And again, why feminists come into these spaces to disrupt them is because we know that if we set this new collective goal within the same system we have right now — with this thinking that we can silo out a particular flow of climate finance that is somehow divorced from a system based on debt and austerity, and not take into account how finance is flowing into harm right now, whether that’s fossil fuels or militarism–it simply will fail. So how do we break open that door? I’d like to ask Emilia, who has always helped us zoom out to the macro, a two-part question: How do we have to see this conversation about a new collective goal in the context of broader economic justice? And how should we as feminists be integrating that into our advocacy?

Emilia: What you’re saying Bridget is extremely relevant because I don’t think that the UNFCCC is the proper space to solve the entire systems change that we need, but it’s a key space because of what Tara has mentioned. In the bigger picture we know that even if we stopped the emissions that are leading to the climate emergency we will still have a broader environmental emergency due to biodiversity loss, ocean acidification, and chemical waste [among other issues]. So there is a huge chain of planetary boundaries that are being violated by human action, especially corporate extraction — not only of our value and our time as persons, but of the natural resources.

We need to focus on the regulatory/normative dimension of finance and shift the entire architecture. We know that the overshoot of carbon emissions is 93% from countries in the Global North, meaning that the Global North is responsible for this environmental degradation. This relates to the discussion of the new collective goal because the goal has to be one that is measured within bolder transformations. For instance, we are talking about capping material resources for the Global North and proposing degrowth — first with respect to the overconsumption of the Global North and second, regarding the overconsumption of the wealthy and elite within the Global North. This would allow for sustainable development in the Global South, but also for decent standards of living for people globally. This comes paired up with capping energy use because we know that this extractive ambition and greed is paired up with a humongous use of energy that is not needed and that is eroding human rights.

So this is an element we need to think about more broadly; for instance, how we can pair up some of the UNFCCC mandates with others outside it? We cannot keep on asking for ODA [official development assistance] because the issue of finance for adaptation, for loss and damage, is a broader conversation about redistribution and reparations. Trillions are currently flowing from the financial sector to extractive industries, so we need to work on regulation and illegitimate spaces of power like the G7 and G20 that keep deciding how to promote this greedy style of life. We also need to hold the UN accountable — not bringing corporate power into the UN spaces. We have seen that in the UNFCCC, with the FAO conversation on food systems, and we see it even now with UN Women partnering with BlackRock (BlackRock, Inc.) and betraying their alliance with women’s human rights. So this conversation on the way that we need to engage with systems change is so key to support the discussion in the UNFCCC and at the same time to have the ambition to bring environmental experts, the scientific community, economic justice experts, and Indigenous voices to these other spheres. I dream of a larger global mobilization in these spaces with these common messages so we can demand more dignity and more freedom from our decision-makers.

Bridget: Thank you for encapsulating both the analysis but also the urgency of where we are with this crisis. We know a lot of these challenges and we need to take steps toward real action. Part of what brought us together in community both in Bonn with the UNFCCC and in the “Reboot the System” Eurodad conference is the decision we took at the Generation Equality Forum that the conversations around economic justice and climate justice were just not reaching the systemic analysis that was needed to really address these issues that we face. So together with other organizations we launched our own blueprint for feminist economic and climate justice to say what is really needed. And you have really started outlining for us, Emilia, some of the destabilizing of conversations and ideas that feminists are really called upon to do in this moment in a frank and bold way–whether under the UNFCCC’s new goal or in other spaces as you have pointed out. Systems change has always been something we as feminists have called for, but systems thinking in our leadership and advocacy is more important than ever before. This is one of the key messages I’m taking away. I’d love to pass to you, Tara or Emilia, for any final thoughts as we close.

Tara: Thanks, Bridget. I want to follow up on something that Emilia was saying while describing this incredible harmful planet-destroying system of extractive capitalism, and the greed that continues to power it, but also just at this point the momentum that is powering it. We mentioned at the beginning that this is the status quo and we have such an obligation to show that a better way is possible. It does require fundamentally dismantling the current system, but we have that feminist vision and that’s what we are contributing to this process. I also want to think about the new quantified collective goal not only as an endpoint, where we will have something that will start working in 2025 and deliver the results that we hope. While that is important, the process matters too–and nothing is stopping governments from improving now the ways they are investing in feminist solutions. We can continue to show them what that can look like for direct access for grassroots feminist organizations, for grant-based finance, for ensuring there is alignment and integrity in investing across their governments. So I hope we can use some of this thinking to continue to power these conversations while we are also searching for transformative outcomes.

Bridget: This is super important; we talk crudely about this analysis of divesting in harm to invest in care and while a lot of our analysis and advocacy points out the ways we should divest in harm, we should also give attention to all the ways that all of us as feminists show up with vision and solutions to showcase what it means to invest in care and social protection and systems that work to uphold our planetary and social boundaries as well. Over to you Emilia.

Emilia: I want to complement what Tara was saying and also make sure that we call out language on false solutions, or the lip service we see happening in UN spaces. I also want to highlight that what we see as a trend is that it is more likely that this climate finance goal will rely on bonds, which is totally detrimental, to what Tara was saying. We see a huge movement on canceling debt, environmental justice, tax justice (corporate tax abuse to be regulated) but there is a disconnect between the implications of the debt and environmental crises and the environmental discussions on finance. I think there is a need for all of us to get in alignment on what we want and need to pressure and push back against collective trends of member states in the UN that propose solutions that are really undermining outcomes. We need to stand strong. And we need a new collective mobilization, first taking a step back analyzing and regrouping, and then taking a step forward boldly. The movements are there, the wisdom is there, but we don’t seem to have been working collectively enough. And we don’t have the luxury of time. Conversations like this are a good starting point to organize in a different way and invite everyone to feel inspired and to join the efforts.