In September 2021, Fatemeh Jailani joined SINGA Global, as Chief Operating Officer. This advocacy and public affairs specialist is now an ambassador for the European Climate Pact. In the midst of the COP 27 and in a context where migration is intensifying especially with regard to climate change, we will zoom in on her commitment as well as SINGA’s ambitions and actions with respect to the climate…

 

Fatemeh Jailani began her career at Mazars and spent seven years developing and governing the European Affairs department. In 2020, she developed and launched Accidental European (AE): a media platform to make European political themes accessible to everyday citizens. Born in the United States to Afghan refugee parents, she has a personal relationship with migration and inclusion.

  • Maëlle M: Hello Fatemeh, you are an ambassador for the European Green Deal… Can you tell us how and since when you became an ambassador?

Fatemeh J – I have been an European Climate Pact Ambassador for nearly two years now, and I accepted this pledge because I believe that as citizens, we all have a responsibility towards the environment, and we must ground our motivation and commitment in our interactions with society.

This goes beyond our personal lives; we can also lead by example in our professional lives. We can all be leaders on this topic, whether at home, at work or wherever. Moreover, having been impassioned by European public policies for many years, I think that the European “Green Deal” is an initiative that could really serve as an example, but citizens’ commitment and perpetual questioning of public policy are necessary to keep the latter up to date, and to perpetually meet the real challenges of our climate. 

  • What does this title mean to you, personally?

FJ – I think this title stipulates that I have to constantly work to raise awareness by shedding light on the blind spots. What do I mean? When I started my media, Accidental European, I felt like I had a responsibility to share with people the policies that shape our response to climate change in a way they can understand. 

Indeed, how can we ask citizens to engage and commit if we do not make great efforts to involve them in the policies which shape their world? I wanted to not only remove the technical jargon from public policies by making them more tangible and human for everyday citizens, but also bring to the surface best practices from NGOs, civil society, medium size and small businesses, from anyone who is not at the discussion table, but are implicated or concerned…!

We all have experiences that deserve to be shared, and tomorrow’s public policies, if they wish to remain relevant, ought to take into account all the common and non-common denominators. Everyone has a voice, everyone has an experience. We all live in the same world. We just see different angles of it.

  • And what does this mean for you, as SINGA Global’s COO ?

FJ – As COO of SINGA Global, I feel compelled to shed light, with the support of our CEO and other leaders within this organization, on the links between migration and climate change (1.2 billion people could be displaced worldwide by 2050 due to climate change), and how newcomers can also bring their ideas to the debate table to fight climate change. For example, think about the creation of a wind garden in Madrid, inspired by Middle Eastern, Iranian wind towers… Or my mother who emigrated from Afghanistan, and was already promoting, at home, the circular economy since the 80s because she lived through war and exile, thus abundance was not always an option for her… To be honest, in my family we say—with a smile—that my mother was a hipster before everyone !! What would have happened if we had allowed her to share her ideas and her experience with the society that welcomed her, instead of limiting her by subjecting her to prejudice?

SINGA’s objective is to work with all actors: civil society, public institutions, private actors, local, national governments and supranational institutions, and our peers to push the limits of our imagination and illustrate that migration can be a driver of change, not just an unexpected and uncontrolled consequence of climate change. (Even if it is not so “unexpected” given the projections established for a while…)

Today, we are in contact with the World Bank, the IOM, the OECD, European institutions, and economic actors which support us to better explore and feed into the ongoing discussions, and design more relevant responses together. We must act within a larger ecosystem if we wish to be effective in this global fight.

  • SINGA is also part of the Business Climate Convention (CEC). Can you tell us about SINGA’s ambitions with regards to the climate in the years to come?

FJ – SINGA’s founder, Guillaume Capelle and SINGA France’s Managing Director, David Robert were already engaged with CEC before I arrived. It was motivating to know that I was joining an organization that was working with 150 leaders from all regions and sectors to align the corporate world in France with the Paris Climate Agreement. 

Their work was consolidated in a final report, and more specifically in a roadmap for SINGA which specifies our commitment in the years to come. As an organization that accompanies newcomers in their entrepreneurial projects, seeks to better advise companies on their ESG obligations, challenges such companies to go even further than their basic obligations, and is currently developing a vehicle for impact investing, we have a responsibility to know exactly where we stand on topics that will be key to holding us all accountable:

Our goals for the coming years are the following:

  • train our employees and our project leaders on climate needs and on regenerative economic models;
  • ensure that companies supported by SINGA carry out a life cycle analysis and measure their carbon footprint; 
  • guarantee that the companies and NGOs stemming from our entrepreneurship programs form, together, an ecosystem valued at 1 billion beneficiaries (Sustainable Development Goals).

Our responsibility is to also push our limits and imagination to avoid stagnating on outdated criteria. We must always push the bar by holding ourselves accountable first, in order to have the confidence to hold others accountable.

  • According to you, what do you think would mark the success of COP 27 this year?

FJ – Ensuring climate justice. Some of the world’s poorest countries, which have contributed the least to the climate crisis, are experiencing massive loss and damage due to climate impacts. They must now pay for a crisis for which they are not responsible…

Take the example of Pakistan which has suffered droughts this summer, prior to unprecedented monsoon rains, leading to the displacement of 50 million people internally. Yet Pakistan contributed to less than 1% of global carbon emissions while Germany, whose population is about 37% of Pakistan’s, emits 2.17% of CO2.

We can also cite the climatic disasters we are witnessing in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and South Sudan…these countries will fall into extreme debt to face these disasters if rich countries do not join forces to help them .

This COP27 could be the opportunity for rich countries to assume their responsibilities, to define common values in the face of the global challenges we all share, and to help the nations in difficulty, which bear the burden of this crisis, with a non-condescending peer-to-peer approach. If we can put in place an equitable “loss and damage” funding mechanism, imagine the powerful message that could send, and the precedent it would set in our joint engagement.