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May 2011Dear reader, For more information and updates, please visit our website www.gendercc.net. Furthermore, we would like to encourage you to contribute to the newsletter, please send your articles to newsletter[at]gendercc.net Marion and Carolin  |
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Content
Activities of the Gender and Climate Change Community
News on Gender and Climate Change
Who is Who at GenderCC - Sharmind Neelormi
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News from GenderCCFarewell to Marion Rolle, GenderCC's international coordinator GenderCC wants to inform you that our coordinator Marion Rolle is leaving the International Secretariat at the end of this month. She has been with us for over one and a half years and will now embark upon an exciting new journey. The following five months Marion will be travelling through Latin America where she will meet up with - among others - two of our South American partners. After her return to Europe she hopes to continue to work on the topic of gender and climate change, but her preferred focus will be on policital education and awareness-raising.
We thank Marion for all her work for GenderCC - in Berlin, at the COPs and SBSTAs and other meetings and conferences and workshops, with our Steering Group and Board, our members, partners, funders, colleagues and interns! We're sad to see her go. She did so much to get GenderCC to the next level. GenderCC Southern Africa builds a gender and climate change movement GenderCC Southern Africa’s project on ‘Gender and Climate Change: Raising Awareness, Building Capacity, and Influencing Policy’ was initiated at a critical time in our history. South Africa is embarking on developing a climate change response policy, hoping to impress at the UNFCCC COP17 in Durban at the end of 2011. This is an opportunity for GenderCC South Africa (GenderCCSA) to put forward its agenda and to integrate gender into climate change related policy.
To find out more about the project please visit our website. Text written by Dorah Lebelo, GenderCC Focal Point Africa Gender @ the UNFCCCWomen must get their fair share of climate finance At the end of April, a transitional committee of chosen countries held its first meeting in Mexico to outline the details of the UN backed Green Climate Fund and to discuss how to get the fund up and running. The committee was confronted with some important questions: How can it be ensured that the money is received by those most vulnerable to climate change? How to judge which projects are most effective and efficient? Where will the money come from, and who will decide how it is allocated?
Much has been said on the fundamental issue that pits developed and developing countries against one another. But further questions still need to be asked, particularly regarding women: What are the benefits of the Green Climate Fund to women? How to incorporate a gender perspective in decision making about the fund? How can the most vulnerable women access resources to build the resilience of their communities? How can the fund compensate women who have lost their few assets due to climate change?
Around the world, a large percentage of women still lack access to land. Estimates by the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) show that women produce as much as 80 to 90 percent of food in some regions, including sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. Therefore women’s needs and gender equality are fundamental issues that, when overlooked, can disempower communities and derail efforts to achieve human rights and equality.
Read the whole article here. Women for Climate Justice on the Bangkok Intersessional Meeting 2011 After the Bangkok climate talks in April 2011, women have more reasons to be worried. Efforts of developed countries to keep the Kyoto Protocol and the Bali Action Plan in oblivion are quite apparent while discussion on the Long Term Cooperative Action has been stalled. Moreover, developed countries continue to evade their historical responsibility in averting the current climate crisis. We fear that we are stuck with a half-baked pie from Copenhagen and Cancún.
The level of ambition among developed countries in cutting down their greenhouse gas emissions, as a climate mitigation effort, is far away from what science prescribes. As most of them are dependent on an intensive carbon economy at least 70 per cent of mitigation pledges, to be done by 2020, should come from the developed part of the world. A further concern is the shift to nuclear energy as a mitigation effort, especially after the devastating events in Japan.
There was some progress in the negotiations over adaptation as well as a greater acceptance of developing countries to take more responsibility in decision-making in terms of structure, operations and resources within the Adaptation Committee. Gender considerations have to be pushed further to ensure gender balance in the governance of the Committee and the distribution of its resources. However, only a handful of governments explicitly supported the gender call and hardly any come from the less developed world.
The constitution of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) remains unclear during the discussions in Bangkok. Regarding gender equality it is important to follow a dual path: to mainstream gender into the the criteria and decisions, AND to allocate at least 30 per cent of the GCF and so-called innovative sources for women and gender-focused adaptation initiatives. Financial resources for the GCF must be additional, scaled-up, public, grant-based, directly accessible, adequate and predictable.
Many opportunities were missed in Bangkok. Therefore GenderCC urges governments and particularly developed countries to move forward in a way that respects a multilateral process and to act in the interest of women and communities.
Click here to read the whole statement. Activities of the Gender and Climate Change CommunityStatement of the Asian Rural Women’s Coalition on the disaster in Japan The Asian Rural Women’s Coalition (ARWC, March 30, 2011) draws attention to the situation of Japanese women after the disaster on March 11, 2011:
The tragic events caused by the earthquakes and Tsunami that hit the eastern part of Japan raised international solidarity. The nuclear crisis at Fukushima is apparently not under control and continues to be a radiation threat. ARWC is concerned about the people who were exposed to radiation during the operations to suppress the reactors as well as the public who has to shoulder the consequences of radiation exposures. Women’s reproductive health, particularly pregnant women, fetus and children are at high risk and are the most affected as the experience of Chernobyl show.
Nuclear power has been promoted with the false assumption that nuclear is safe and a clean alternative to fossil fuel. In Asia, various countries have expressed their interest in building nuclear plants including Thailand, Indonesia, Burma, the Philippines and India. These plants are generally situated in rural areas or outskirts of capital cities exposing the local community to the risks. Furthermore, policy-making and employment in nuclear industries are male-dominated, which widen the gaps in economic capacity and autonomy between women and men and strengthen the patriarchal system in society. Due to these differences, women in rural areas are more vulnerable, particularely in crisis situation such as natural disasters, disease outbreaks and exposure to pollution.
Read the entire statement here.
GenderCC would like to express its compassion for the people in Japan who have been forced to abandon their homes due to the radioactive contamination. Australian project ‘1 million women for climate change action’ for teens launched On March 29, the Australian campaign ‘1 Million Women’ launched a website publicising activities aiming in particular at increasing the climate-related awareness of teenagers. The main goal is to inspire 1 million Australian women to take an active role against climate change by cutting 1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas causing global warming.
The Goals: Every woman who joins in has to cut 1 tonne of CO2 from her daily lifestyle within a year.
The ‘1 Million Women’ website keeps participants informed about different possibilities to decrease the carbon footprint, and to track their individual progress. It is not necessary to be an expert on climate change: Everybody can join in and is guided along every step of the process.
Take a look at the website and join in. Commission on the Status of Women Adopts Resolution on Gender Equality and Climate Change On the 1st of March, the 55th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) adopted a resolution to mainstream gender equality and promote the empowerment of women in climate change policies and strategies. It is the first resolution (E/CN.6/2011/L.1) by the CSW to address the link between gender equality and climate change.
The Philippines chaired the negotiation and worked with Member States to achieve consensus. In the end, 53 Member States co-sponsored the resolution evidencing broad overall support.
The resolution reflects on the existing international conventions and frameworks on women’s empowerment and climate change and reaffirms commitments in relevant instruments. These include the Beijing Platform for Action under the area of ‘Women and the environment’, the Hyogo Framework for Action, Human Rights Council resolution 10/4 of 25 on climate change, and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Cancún Agreements. In all of these gender equality and participation of women in decision-making is important to every aspect of climate change.
Governments and other relevant actors under the resolution are encouraged to promote women’s equal access to education, media and information, communications and technology as well as women’s equal participation and training. The resolution calls upon economic, political, and scientific institutions to take into account the impact of environmental degradation and climate change on women, and develop database tools and statistics that are disaggregated by sex and age, and gender sensitive methodologies and policy analysis. The importance of strengthening rural women’s access to and control of resources, including land, is highlighted.
Parties to the UNFCCC are also called upon to continue to incorporate a gender perspective and make efforts to ensure the effective participation of women in the ongoing climate change talks leading to the 17th Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC in Durban, South Africa, this year. Throughout the negotiation process, experts from UN Women provided technical support to Member States on the inter-linkages between gender and climate change. Gender and Climate Change in India The National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) released by the Government of India in June 2008 is a positive first step in India’s efforts to combat climate change. However, from a gender perspective, there are two main problems:
1. A lack of women’s representation in the Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change
2. Infantilization of women and inclusion as “victims”
The NAPCC acknowledges briefly in one paragraph the particular gendered vulnerability that women face regarding climate change. While this may sound promising, and is certainly pointed towards questions of gender sensitivity, it is at best a superficial acknowledgement. In fact, after doing a search for the words "gender" and "women" I found only two separate references to women and one reference to gender in the entire 53 page report. Furthermore, men are not really mentioned in the report, giving the impression that gender is only about women.
When women are mentioned, they are lumped together with children and the elderly, thereby infantilizing them. This is problematic because it treats women as vulnerable entities that need to be protected, which uni-dimensionalizes women’s experiences and denies them permission into the discussion as anything other than climate victims. It also ignores the ways in which women are taking on climate change, often with very little resources.
News on Gender and Climate Change
Who is Who at GenderCCGenderCC Asia Focal Point Sharmind Neelormi is an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics in Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh. Her primary responsibility is to teach at tertiary level, and to do public policy research. Currently she is working in a GenderCC project (Gender and Climate Change: Raising Awareness, Building Capacity, and Influencing Policy) aiming to raise awareness among policy makers and the public regarding the issues of gender and climate change in Bangladesh as well as the global level.
Sharmind is associated with the Centre for Global Change (CGC) in advisory capacity. Her involvement with CGC encompasses research and advocacy; she was involved in different research activities, including vulnerability analysis of women, other climate-related groups in Bangladesh and has been working for Sustainable Rural Livelihoods (CSRL), an advocacy network in Bangladesh. Her main involvement is to address policy issues through advocacy and campaign through CSRL, specifically on agriculture and climate change issues. In general, Sharmind is interested in Adaptation and Vulnerability analysis under climate change, and socio-economic research. Since 2007 Sharmind has been working with GenderCC, and at the present time she is our Focal Point and Steering Group member with focus on Asia. Publications
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