GI-ESCR programme officer Alejandra Lozano participated in the regional conference on “Just Transitions in Latin America: Debates, Struggles and Key Stakeholders” jointly organized by Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales (CLACSO), la Escuela de Ciencias Humanas, and Oxfam Latin America and held in Bogotá, Colombia from 28 September to 1st October 2022.

We provided along with Colombian civil society organization ClimaLab the workshop on “Decarbonization, Just Transitions and Human Rights” and participated in the conference on “Gender Perspectives and Climate Justice in Latin American Transitions” along with several other activists and academics working on ecofeminist approaches to the field.

The Conference allowed GI-ESCR to continue to build momentum with academic and civil society organizations working in the Latin American region to popularise, expand and bring more audiences into the debate on how could a just transition look like in Latin America. How can we reduce our economy’s dependence on extractives and fossil fuels while ensuring the most marginalised populations can access their fundamental rights and all people can flourish within planetary boundaries.

The transition to clean, renewable and efficient energies to phase out fossil fuels and reduce Latin American dependency on extractive policies is urgent and essential, but the available avenues to ensure this process is conducted integrating equality and social justice criteria are still largely disputed.

The conference on Just Transitions in Latin America aimed to explore these key issues considering the role that the human rights framework and the principles of intersectionality, gender equality, intergenerational equality and intercultural appropriateness should have in driving an eco-social transformation towards a just and sustainable future.