The US deputy in Scotland with Nancy Pelosi: “We are under threat”
FROM THE ENVIRONMENT TO GLASGOW. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t need a podium or spotlight. When he enters a room, even though it is Glasgow’s huge plenary room, he seems to move the air around him. «They will tell me that I am small, that I am young, that I am inexperienced. But I can do it, I have the courage to do it. I take up space, “he said, waving his arms in a self-encouragement speech during the campaign for the dem primary in 2019. Not even three years old, and here she is, among the twenty delegates brought to Glasgow by Nancy Pelosi,” taking up space “too without doing anything. Black mask, laughing eyes, repetitive selfies with young feminists who whisper “Cortez is our myth”.
To answer the questions he moves a few meters, he does not want to annoy the delegates who are taking their seats in the hall for the event on gender equality and climate change. So Ocasio-Cortez, women and the climate? “That’s right!”, He says, opening his eyes wide and remembering how important it is, “that here, today, it finally becomes clear how much the climate crisis and gender inequality are related and how these phenomena highlight other problems, to all levels, problems that are often not thought of, problems that are direct or indirect effects of the exploitation of the environment ». For instance? “Let’s talk about the United States. We live in an absurd situation, where indigenous women are being killed or disappear, all the time. This happens near fossil fuel extraction sites. Women who protest or who try to express dissent are threatened, or made to disappear ”. There was much talk in Glasgow about women, indigenous communities and their fragility when combined factors: «And in fact it is important to be here today. Climate justice will only be achieved with gender justice and with the protection of indigenous communities and indigenous cultures, which you know are often matriarchal. ” Then the circle closes: “We must listen to the voices of women and natives, and beyond: indigenous wisdom, principles and organization to protect the environment have proved right over and over again, it is time for them to become central in a global climate agenda, I want to push the limits of politics to accelerate the fight against climate change ». The deputy from the dem left who most appeals to environmental movements (the last blow had placed her at the Met Gala 2021 wearing the “Tax the rich” dress) is, needless to say, also a champion of women – “We are under threat, we must fight together ». During the interventions from the stage, he takes notes, applauds, nods. And before arriving in the Glasgow conference room he does not miss the opportunity to argue against those congressional colleagues (Republicans) suspected of being “sponsored” by the oil industry. “I note – he wrote yesterday on Instagram – that some have decided not to travel with the official US delegation, but with the support of private sponsors that some may suspect are linked to interests of companies in the fossil fuel sector”.
And again: “The US has not recovered its moral authority,” he said last night, this time under the spotlight of the COP. This is the new meaning that Cortez gives to Biden’s slogan “America is back”: “When we say that the United States is back, it does not mean that we are back in the way the United States used to pursue climate policy, we are not alone. returned, but we are different, more just ». The New York congresswoman then praised the activism of US environmentalists who, even in the Trump years, created “an alternative path to pursue climate justice”. And in this regard, she recalled the protest movement, in which she herself participated, against the Dakota Access pipeline led by the Lakota Sioux nation. She is the one who introduced the concept of the Green New Deal into the political debate, praising Biden for having succeeded in “translating grassroots demands into federal policies.”
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