This year’s World Environment Day comes amid an unprecedented escalation of environmental crises that are increasingly threatening the very foundations of life across the world. While scientific warnings continue to highlight rising global temperatures, intensifying droughts, floods, and climate-related disasters, as well as the ongoing loss of biodiversity and degradation of ecosystems, international political responses remain incapable of addressing the structural causes that have brought the world to this critical juncture.
The environmental crisis we are experiencing today lies at the heart of the crisis of the prevailing global economic system; indeed, it is one of its direct consequences. For decades, this system has been built upon the excessive exploitation of natural resources, the limitless expansion of production and consumption, and the entrenchment of unequal relations between the Global North and the Global South, allowing wealth to accumulate in certain parts of the world at the expense of the depletion of nature, labour, and resources elsewhere. Climate change and environmental degradation, therefore, cannot be understood except as part of a deeper crisis related to the dominant global patterns of development, production, and distribution.
In our region — Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA) — this crisis manifests itself in even more acute and complex forms. The region is among the most vulnerable in the world to the impacts of climate change. Water scarcity is intensifying, the productive capacity of agricultural lands is declining, and pressures on fragile ecosystems are increasing, while countries across the region simultaneously face accumulating economic and social challenges, including rising public debt levels, the expansion of austerity policies, and declining expenditure on essential services and social protection.
Nor can the environmental crisis in our region be separated from the impacts of wars and military occupations affecting many parts of the world. These wars leave devastating and long-lasting environmental consequences, including the destruction of forests, green spaces, and agricultural lands; the contamination of water, soil, and air; the depletion of natural resources; and severe damage to the ecosystems upon which communities depend for their livelihoods and survival. Ongoing wars and the industries associated with them also contribute to increased emissions, while affected peoples bear the greatest burden of these impacts. Ignoring the environmental dimensions of wars and occupations means overlooking one of the most significant sources of contemporary environmental destruction and undermines any serious discussion of environmental and climate justice.
In this context, the most vulnerable communities become the most exposed to harm. Women in particular bear disproportionate burdens, whether through the intensification of care responsibilities and unpaid labour, or through the direct impacts of climate crises on livelihoods, food security, and health. Local communities, especially in rural areas, also face growing pressures resulting from the depletion of natural resources, the expansion of extractive projects, and investment models that prioritize profit over people and nature.
This year’s World Environment Day comes at a time when calls for increased climate finance are growing louder, while the gap between promises and actual commitments persists. Although countries of the Global South require substantial resources to adapt to the impacts of climate change and address loss and damage, available resources remain far below actual needs. Moreover, a significant portion of the financing provided continues to come in the form of loans, increasing debt burdens rather than contributing to climate justice. This reality reflects the continued imbalance of power within the international economic system, whereby communities least responsible for the environmental crisis bear the greatest cost of its consequences.
In reality, discussions of a green transition or sustainable development lose their meaning when all of these issues are ignored collectively. A just transition cannot be achieved without addressing the accumulated debt crisis, without guaranteeing the right to public services, or without ensuring the meaningful participation of affected communities in decisions concerning their future and resources. Nor can a sustainable future be built upon the continuation of the very patterns of exploitation and marginalization that have contributed to producing the current crisis.
In this context, MenaFem reaffirms the commitments and demands set out in the Rabat Declaration and Roadmap adopted by the movement in 2025, which emphasized the interconnections between environmental, economic, and feminist justice, and highlighted the need to address the structural imbalances of the global economic system, including debt crises and austerity policies, while ensuring equitable climate finance based on grants, historical responsibility, and climate justice. The Declaration and Roadmap also underscored the importance of protecting the collective rights of local communities over their natural resources and ensuring their meaningful participation in decision-making processes. MenaFem considers the demands outlined in this statement to be a continuation of the vision articulated in the Rabat Declaration and Roadmap and a renewed commitment to advancing environmental, climate, economic, and feminist justice across the SWANA region.
Based on the above, MenaFem affirms on World Environment Day:
- That environmental justice, economic justice, and feminist justice are interconnected issues that cannot be separated from one another.
- That addressing the environmental crisis requires confronting the structural causes embedded within the global economic system, including debt crises, austerity policies, and historical inequalities in international economic relations.
- The rejection of climate finance being transformed into a new mechanism for expanding indebtedness, and the call for public financing based on grants, historical responsibility, and climate justice.
- Support for the right of local communities and affected peoples to meaningfully participate in the management of their natural resources and in decision-making processes concerning them.
- The protection of the rights to water, food, energy, and land as fundamental rights rather than commodities subject to market logic.
- The promotion of economic and social models that place the sustainability of life, care, and justice at the centre of public policies.
- The condemnation of environmental destruction caused by wars and military occupations, and the call for accountability for those responsible, while ensuring the protection of natural resources and ecosystems as an integral part of peoples’ rights, including their rights to life, dignity, and self-determination.
- Holding accountable those actors, states, and corporations most responsible for environmental degradation and historical emissions, and ensuring that they fulfil their responsibilities towards the peoples of the Global South.
On World Environment Day, we at MenaFem renew our commitment to working towards a more just and sustainable world — a world in which the rights of both people and nature are protected, and where environmental policies are built upon the principles of equity, solidarity, and shared responsibility, rather than on the logic of domination, exploitation, and profit accumulation.
MenaFem Movement For Economic, Development, and Ecological Justice