Senegalese women call for climate justice ahead of COP29 summit

Ahead of the United Nations COP29 summit in Azerbaijan this month, women in Senegal took to the streets of Dakar on Saturday to demand climate justice.

Attended by some 50 climate activists, they are seeking protection of the country’s resources and calling for a decarbonised future.

Former tour guide, Cheikh Niang Faye, says they have been marching for four years and “nothing’s changed”.

“They’re spending billions to do their conferences, but they owe us billions in compensation. Because it’s these industrialised countries in their race to develop who have caused these greenhouse gasses,” she said.

Faye highlighted that fact that global warming has had a very negative impact, particularly on women in the rural world.

This year has seen record-breaking floods in Senegal affecting tens of thousands of people and damaging more than 1,000 hectares of crops in the north and east of the country.

The activists say the countries responsible for greenhouse gas emissions owe Africa for the suffering caused by the effects of climate change

Khady Faye is an activist who travelled to Dakar from her home near Senegal’s Saloum Delta, a region which has suffered devastating coastal erosion.

Production at the Sangomar oil fields, Senegal’s first offshore drilling site near the Saloum Delta, started this year.

Australian group Woodside Energy has an 82 per cent stake in the project.

“Think about the suffering of these communities. Try to leave our delta alone, try to leave the gas at Sangomar underground, to let the community live normally. We want climate justice in the Saloum Delta,” she said.

The main organiser of the march, Dakar-based activist Khady Camara, said that ahead of the climate summit, she is calling on countries to respect the Paris Agreement.

“It’s time for polluting countries to agree to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gasses. Because that is what’s at the root of all the catastrophes that Africa is suffering from,” she said.