Kera O’Regan

Great vibe in the room as the Belém Gender Action Plan is gavelled through with no objections! Woohoo! #COP30 #GAP #BelémGAP

It’s been a shit few days here at #COP30 so when I got the pānui that my iwi are taking the Crown to Court to protect our taiao and future generations it was pretty special.

A real demonstration of everything we’re preaching here - Indigenous Peoples are holding the line where states are failing!

Your wellness routine should include taking precautions to avoid multiple covid infections that damage your immune system, hope that helps. 🌟💕

Note the invitation to complain to the HRC about "discrimination on the ground of sex, including gender identity, gender expression and innate variations of sex characteristics" at the end.

I will certainly be doing so.

happy trans day of remembrance. you are beautifully and wonderfully made and I will never stop fighting for you. the world is better because you are in it

'My mana reignited': Attendees leave world's largest indigenous education conference feeling inspired The conference, which closed on Thursday, brought together more than 3000 attendees from around the globe to Auckland.

'My mana reignited': Attendees leave world's largest indigenous education conference feeling inspired

Halt to puberty blockers curses 'young transgender women to stigma' That's the reaction of a model who used puberty blockers as a teen to rules halting new prescriptions for young people.

One of the things cis women have long fought for bodily autonomy with are cries such as "get your laws off my body" & "my body, my choice" ... trans folks are no different.

This is why the ban on puberty blockers for trans folks is so incredibly stupid and ideological.
www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...

We were in a hotel literally in the COP security perimeter - so literally right next to the venue entrance - and still we had to pull SO many strings to eventually be allowed to deliver the statement virtually.

And people were not pleased about having to accommodate that. It’s wildly inaccessible.

But having any inputs virtually almost never happens which is terrible. I remember at COP26 for example, my partner Jason was meant to deliver a high level statement for Disability Caucus. Then we found out we had been a close contact for another delegate that got COVID so had to isolate.

Including live-streaming more than just the main plenaries but even that has been a challenge to get across the line consistently. Some years yes, other years no, other years yes in policy but in practice the internet doesn’t sustain it.

Please don’t apologise at all! They’re all totally excellent points. The current set up IS discriminatory, absolutely and they are super resistant to change.

It’s just a shame there is currently no full solution. Many have been pushing to make them much more virtual than they currently are.

Thankfully in some spaces (like global Indigenous Peoples Caucus) there is now a concept of language justice (having interpretation so not only English dominant) but also time zone justice (so multiple streams to ensure Pacific included, or taking turns at which time zone will be best).

But in adjacent spaces - so not official UNFCCC meetings, but like civil society calls, international working groups etc there are lots of zooms and they always end up being 3am for us and it is horrific.

I am extremely pro virtual in every other situation (I WFH and normally don’t do crowds bc of immune issues) but virtual COP would mean only the big players get more power. So much of what happens here is because of chance meetings on the side outside of the televised plenaries.

It sounds counterintuitive but there are oddly a lot of very good reasons why it’s not virtual - not least because of the way the space works virtual would magnify the exclusion rather than help people. BUT the worst thing is that with the timezone difference we in Pacific are always screwed too!

Yeah exactly that was the rationale for Fiji which is totally fair enough & Bonn is the default option because that’s where the UNFCC is headquartered. But when it becomes evident it’s a repeated pattern there should be some way to break it up.

The regional rotation system clearly doesn’t work when the majority of the conferences are held in 2 out of the 5 and when the prospect of a Pacific COP comes down to WEOG! (Western Europe and Others Group which Australia and NZ are part of).

COP21 Paris, France
COP22 Morocco
COP23 Germany (Fiji Presidency)
COP24 Poland
COP25 Spain (Chile Presidency)
COP26 Scotland
COP27 Egypt
COP28 UAE
COP29 Azerbaijan
COP30 Brazil

All but 2 COPs since the Paris Agreement have been Europe or Middle East and now COP31 will be Türkiye, not Aus-Pacific

It’s not!
COP21 Paris, France
COP22 Marrakech, Morocco
COP23 Bonn, Germany (Fiji Presidency)
COP24 Katowice, Poland
COP25 Madrid, Spain (Chile Presidency)
COP26 Glasgow, Scotland
COP27 Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt
COP28 Dubai, UAE
COP29 Baku, Azerbaijan
COP30 Belém, Brazil

Not much regional rotation!

Oh my friend! It’s so wonderful to hear from you. Thank you, it’s such a fucking blow eh. Your support has been so incredible I’m gutted we won’t be in Aus. Hopeful we can still do something though 🤞🏽

‪Since I’ve been here we’ve had 4 COPs in Europe, then 3 in the Middle East, and now one in South America. Obviously with some exceptional dynamics (Bonn-Fiji, Chile-Madrid) but how can this be considered a truly regional and fair rotation when the Pacific always loses?‬

‪And to wrap up I want to be clear that this is not about shade on Türkiye individually. On a personal and individual level, I would love to go there. But this is about the broader issue of consistent erasure & exclusion of Pacific folks from these conferences.‬

But some people there had to take an extra week just to get to Fiji because of the limited flight options - imagine the challenge in getting us all to Türkiye! It’s not going to happen.

‪Especially pertinent when disabled people are being left behind in the floods, cyclones, and other disasters that seem to be happening consistently now in New Zealand. At the Pacific Disability Forum last month of course climate was also top of the list.‬

‪And like with my Indigenous community apply all of the above to disabled people from our region too. DPA has been getting more and more involved in climate mahi because that’s what our members have shared is a front of mind issue.‬

‪We were *so* close to having a decent shot at elevating our stories and work and communities and now we’re back to square one. And I’ve been in this space almost a decade trying to open up more space for my community in particular 🤦🏽‍♀️‬

So I’m so gutted that instead I’ll have to report back that it’s going to be another conference that is too far away, too expensive for us to attend, and much more difficult to have the climate impacts and solutions from our own territories platformed and supported.

When it comes to climate change they push me to the front and say oh Kera’s our climate expert and it has been such a hard time affirming that actually the climate space - especially through Indigenous Peoples climate spaces - *is* for them. That their knowledge is needed & VALUED there.

‪These are people who live and breathe and witness the impacts of climate change and colonisation every single day, who hold our traditional knowledge, yet never consider themselves climate experts because they don’t have science or politics degrees.‬

‪We all knew it wasn’t a sure thing, I get it, but I am so gutted that when I report back to my whānau it won’t be with the excitement of “Okay we can finally get more people to the COP, let’s put together our plans to elevate what’s happening on our whenua, to our sacred sites”‬