During COP 9 LIFE in co-operation with ENERGIA and WECF hosted an informal meeting "Is gender an issue in climate change negotiatons?" which was the starting point for improved networking and advocy for mainstreaming gender into the COPs.

More than 30 people contributed their views and underlined the lack of gender awareness in the climate change process. They all were in agreement that gender has been a missing factor in the climate change negotiations and that action needs to be taken to make gender issues much more visible. Climate change is not a neutral process; the technological changes and instruments that are being proposed to mitigate carbon emissions, which are implicitly presented as gender-neutral, are in fact quite gender biased and may negatively affect women or bypass them.

An official side event at COP 9 was hosted by the Women Environmental Ministers Network "Promoting Gender Equality, Providing energy Solutions, Preventing Climate Change". Facilitated by Lena Sommestad, Swedens Environmental Minister, Aster Zaoude Gender Specialist for the United Nations Development Programme, Fatima Denton, Gender and Energy Analyst for ENDa Tierre Monde in Senegal, Fatou Ndeye Gaye, the Head of the Gambian delegation, and Doctor Hermann Ott of the Wuppertal Institute (Berlin) about gender aspects in particular in energy policy and how to integrate them into the climate change debates..