9. December 2019

With representatives of civil society from various countries, UfU discussed opportunities and barriers of civil society participation in climate policies, as well as options to broaden civic space.

The two workshops took place within the Cumbre de los Pueblos and Sociedad Civil por la Acción Climática, the two alternative climate conferences in Santiago (Chile) organized by civil society groups from the region. Both conferences called for climate justice and emphasized that it always has to go along with social justice.

In the two workshops “Raising Ambition through Civil Society Participation: Broaden the spaces of civil society participation in climate policies”, participants determined that compared to standards for good participation in climate policies, the current participation processes offered by the government in their countries do not allow to plan climate policies in dialogue with a broader range of civil society actors. One of the main outcomes of the workshop was that the need to ratify the Escuazú Agreement (Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters) in more South-American countries as a crucial step to support climate-related public participation in the region. This conclusion turned also out to be one of the main claims of both alternative climate conferences.

Both workshops are part of the project ZIVIKLI, carried out together with Friends of the Earth Germany (BUND). While BUND attended COP25 in Madrid with two panel discussions, UfU decided to still realize the planned activities in Santiago, Chile.