The 2017 United Nations Climate Summit: Women Fighting for System Change and Building the Commons at COP23 in Bonn, Germany

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis contribution presents a “commoning ecofeminist analysis” of the actions and perspectives of selected activists within Ende Gelände (Here and No Further), Idle No More, and La Vía Campesina (The Peasant’s Way) who are seeking system change as expressed at the 23rd Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change held 6–7 November 2017 in Bonn, Germany. The analysis finds that women’s struggles for the commons, understood as cooperative control over the means of life, fundamentally challenge capitalist relations and affirm transformative alternatives. From this revolutionary potential, it follows that alliances, especially with those of Indigenous women and women of colour who are engaged in commoning, are crucial to making the epochal transition from ecocidal fossil capitalism to regenerative solar commoning.