Erika Moranduzzo

Job title:

PhD researcher

Area of work:

Migration of people across international borders due to the adverse effects of climate change. This is an area of growing concern as environmental degradation worsens and some areas become increasingly uninhabitable. People are already on the move to find relief from climate events and to seek better living conditions. However, there is no existing legal framework that addresses this category of migrants and discussions at UNFCCC level are still ongoing and not fully integrated into the COP agenda items yet.

What are the big issues that COP29 needs to address? What are your hopes for the negotiations?

COP29 needs to secure clear, effective, scalable and human rights-based commitments on climate finance (for all three pillars, mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage) to meet the needs of affected communities by redressing pre-existing patterns of inequality in a context-sensitive manner. In addition, COP29 must better integrate cross-cutting issues such as climate-induced migration and the needs of climate migrants into its work, from adaptation to loss and damage, climate finance and just transition.

What’s your message for world leaders at COP29?

Leave no one behind and do not prioritise short-term economic interests over the well-being and future of people

Do you have any tips about climate action that you can share?

I suggest using an intersectional eco-feminist perspective when analysing climate policies, as it is the basis for achieving the climate and societal changes needed to build an inclusive, fair, just and sustainable world for all. To get a better overview of COP29 and keep up to date with the negotiations, I suggest you also read the newsletters of Carbon Brief, ECO Newsletter, and ICN. These are some of the NGOs working on climate change that provide a critical analysis of the COP negotiations from a civil society perspective.