Gender activities leading up to COP16 in Cancun

Tianjin, China: Climate Change Talks, October 4 to 9, 2010

As in the past meetings, negotiations on the AWG-LCA document (Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention) were held in drafting groups closed to observers. Moreover, Parties started again more or less from scratch, as the objective of the meeting was to prepare draft decisions for Cancun. Thus, the challenge for Women and Gender was again to ensure that existing references to women and gender were not lost. In an intervention in the Opening Plenary of AWG-LCA, on behalf of GenderCC Gotelind Alber raised the issue of mitigation and low-carbon development from a gender and women’s perspective. The intervention is available for download in the box to the right.

With the help of some supporters of women and gender among Parties and the fact that drafting groups were drawing from the existing text, gender could be maintained in the Shared Vision document, in Adaptation (Chapter II) and Economic and social consequences of response measures (Chapter VII). As for other parts of the existing LCA document, such as REDD where gender is mentioned as well, the meeting generated no new outputs.

The women and gender constituency even managed to introduce some new gender references: “gender balance” in the Composition of the Technology Executive Committee (Chapter IV - Enhanced action on technology development and transfer), and “ensuring the full respect of human rights including the inherent rights of indigenous peoples, women, children, migrant and all vulnerable sectors” in the section “Various approaches, including opportunities for using markets, to enhance the cost effectiveness of, and to promote, mitigation actions” (Chapter VIII), both in brackets, though.

Similar to previous sessions, women and gender NGOs and experts have mainly been following the negotiations on the AWG-LCA document, whereas the AWG-KP negotiations (Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol) received less attention. This does not mean that there is nothing relevant to gender in the Kyoto negotiations, since there is a gender dimension in mitigation, which is not as obvious as for vulnerability and adaptation, though.

However - gender language is just not sufficient. It is important to look at the substance, whether it reflects women’s preferences, for instance in terms of technology choices, and whether it would exaggerate women’s discrimination. Apart from the main problem of the KP negotiations - the lack of ambitious commitment of industrialised countries - numerous crucial issues remain. The first is LULUCF (land use, land use change and forestry). At the moment, the document includes a worrying definition of forests which includes plantations, and this has not been changed in Tianjin. Second, the bracketed options for eligible technologies under CDM and JI include CCS (carbon capture and storage) and nuclear energy. However, a vast majority of women reject these risky technologies, as we know from polls in many countries.

Bonn III: Climate Change Talks, August 2-6, 2010

A statement on behalf of the women and gender constituency was delivered in the LCA-Opening session on Monday, August 2, another one in the KP closing session on Friday. Both interventions are available for download in the box to the right.

Gotelind Alber from GenderCC, Focal Point of the Women and Gender Constituency, chaired the first meeting of the new Executive Secretary Christiana Figueras with the civil society observers.

The constituency members agreed to draft a common submission to the SBI regarding 'Arrangements for Intergovernmental Meetings - Ways to enhance the engagement of observer organizations'. Additionally, they also agreed to the common submission by most of the constituencies.

GenderCC itself drafted another submission on the 'Views and information on the effectiveness of the Nairobi work programme on impacts, vulnerability and adaptation to climate change in fulfilling its objective, expected outcome, scope of work and modalities'.

And finally LIFE and Gender CC joint forces for a submission to the SBI concerning 'information and views that may be relevant to the completion of the intermediate review, including information on best practices and lessons learned from the implementation of the amended New Delhi Work Programme and on remaining barriers to the effective implementation of Article 6 of the Convention'.

All submissions are available for download on the UNFCCC website.

Bonn II: 32. Meeting of the Subsidiary Bodies, May 31 to June 11, 2010

GenderCC, WECF, WEDO and other members of the Women and Gender Constitutency were at the thirty-second sessions of the UNFCCC Convention Subsidiary Bodies, Monday 31 May to Friday 11 June 2010.

Side events

Africa Adaptation Programme. Interdisciplinary approaches to Integrating Gender and Disaster Risk Reduction into Adaptation

The Africa Adaptation Programme (AAP) is a three year, $92.1 million project funded by the Government of Japan operating in 20 countries across Africa. A case study on gender and climate change nexus from Ghana was presented.
Hosted by UNDP

Improving National Implementation: highlighting gender equality and women's participation

With examples of gender plans of action from different regions, IUCN and WEDO convened partners from governments and civil society to highlight the importance of gender considerations in implementing national climate change plans.
Co-hosted by IUCN and WEDO

Gender and climate change research: gaps, questions, and potentials

GenderCC held a side event on “Gender and climate change research: gaps, questions, and potentials”, co-hosted by LIFE, WECF, BRIDGE and GDN. The very well-attended side event aimed for introducing and discussing the current state of research within gender and climate change in specific areas, as well as for raising issues and questions and discussing suggestions for improvement. Gotelind Alber provided in her presentation an introduction and background of gender and climate change research while other presentations focused on a variety of issues such as disasters, conflicts and migration (Maira Zahur/ Pakistan), the feasibility of household and community-based projects under the CDM illustrated by examples in the Caucasus and Central Asia (Robert Müller/ WECF), the new Gender and Climate Change Cutting Edge programme of BRIDGE (Alyson Brody). Furthermore the side-event included the results of a Symposium on the same topic which GenderCC had organised beforehand. Panellists concluded together with the participants the event with a discussion on future steps and ways for improvement within the field of gender and climate change.
As a follow-up to the symposium and side event, on behalf of the Women and Gender Constituency GenderCC took up the initiative to contact the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), to offer support in any possible way, e.g. to share research findings and references, and to comment on draft reports. Responding to the letter, the IPCC Secretariat welcomed the opportunity for further cooperation, and listed a number of possibilities.
All presentations are available for download (please see download box above).

Interventions

Members of the Women and Gender Constituency held a number of interventions (see download-box to the right):

Intervention by Ulrike Röhr, LIFE e.V. on Article 6 of the convention in the SBI opening session (31 May 2010).

Intervention by Dorah Lebelo, GenderCC on behalf of the Women and Gender Constituency in the opening session of the AWG-LCA on 'Financing' (01 June 2010).

Intervention by Sabine Bock, WECF on behalf of the Women and Gender constituency in the opening session of the AWG-KP (01 June 2010).

Intervention by Maira Zahur, GenderCC on behalf of the Women and Gender constituency - SBSTA dialogue on the development in research acitivities relevant to the needs of the Convention (03 June 2010).

Intervention by Rachel Harris, WEDO on behalf of the Women and Gender Constituency in the closing session of the SBSTA on REDD (10 June 2010).

Women's action for climate justice

On June 5th (World Environment Day) from 13:00 - 15:00, women made themselves seen and heard as part of a demonstration for climate protection and climate justice.

The "Women's block", organised by EcoMujer, WECF and WLOE e.V., met at 13:00 at Kaiserplatz, Bonn. A meeting of women interested in continuing to work and network on climate justice and biodiversity issues was held following the demonstration.

Get information on the "Women's block".

Bonn I: Climate Change Talks, April 9-11, 2010

The first round of Climate Change negotiations since Copenhagen took place in Bonn, Germany, 9-11 April. The result of the meeting was an agreement to intensify the negotiation schedule in order to achieve a strong outcome at COP 16 in Mexico at the end of the year. The intensifying will to be done through two additional sessions, of at least one week each during the second half of the year.

During the Bonn meeting, participants from GenderCC together with WEDO, WECF and LIFE held a press briefing discussing the way from Copenhagen and towards Cancun, from a gender perspective. Ulrike Röhr, LIFE, introduced the common platform, shared by the above mentioned organisation, of reasons for and ideas about gender aspects of climate change negotiations. Sandra Freitas, WEDO, continued the press briefing with emphasising the positive gender outcomes from the otherwise failure in Copenhagen. These positive trends have, according to WEDO, to be followed up by even more gender advocating on the road to COP 16, in order to get a gender equal outcome. Marine Franck, representing WECF, brought up the failure in Copenhagen and how we must go on towards Cancun in order to not face the same problems and to get a better outcome. One way to be able to achieve more in Cancun, according to Franck, is to involve civil society into the negotiations. Meetings like the one in Bonn were also mentioned as a good opportunity for delegates to gather again and a possibility to rebuild trust and hope towards Cancun.

To conclude, Gotelind Alber from GenderCC continued Freitas’ discussion on the positive gender outcomes from COP 15, but meant that these progresses only can be found in some parts of the negotiations. Gender aspects are included into the “softer” issues such as adaptation, stakeholder participation and capacity building. However, Gotelind Alber brought up the remaining gaps in the “harder” issues such as mitigation, technologies and financing, where gender aspects are still lacking. GenderCC is pushing for also having gender aspects of these issues included into future climate change negotiations with COP 16 as the next big landmark.

	English \| Deutsch \| Español Home l Press l Databases l Newsletter l Sitemap l Contact l Imprint Gender @ UNFCCC < UNFCCC conferences < Road to Cancun Gender @ UNFCCC Activity fields Resources Networking About GenderCC Topics UNFCCC conferences Durban 2011 Road to Durban Cancún 2010 Road to Cancun Copenhagen 2009 Road to Copenhagen Poznan 2008 Bali 2007 Nairobi 2006 Montreal 2005 Buenos Aires 2004 Milan 2003 New Delhi 2002 Marrakech 2001 The Hague 2000 Kyoto 1997 Berlin 1995 Women & Gender Constituency Related meetings Login User Gender activities leading up to COP16 in Cancun Tianjin, China: Climate Change Talks, October 4 to 9, 2010 As in the past meetings, negotiations on the AWG-LCA document (Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention) were held in drafting groups closed to observers. Moreover, Parties started again more or less from scratch, as the objective of the meeting was to prepare draft decisions for Cancun. Thus, the challenge for Women and Gender was again to ensure that existing references to women and gender were not lost. In an intervention in the Opening Plenary of AWG-LCA, on behalf of GenderCC Gotelind Alber raised the issue of mitigation and low-carbon development from a gender and women’s perspective. The intervention is available for download in the box to the right. With the help of some supporters of women and gender among Parties and the fact that drafting groups were drawing from the existing text, gender could be maintained in the Shared Vision document, in Adaptation (Chapter II) and Economic and social consequences of response measures (Chapter VII). As for other parts of the existing LCA document, such as REDD where gender is mentioned as well, the meeting generated no new outputs. The women and gender constituency even managed to introduce some new gender references: “gender balance” in the Composition of the Technology Executive Committee (Chapter IV - Enhanced action on technology development and transfer), and “ensuring the full respect of human rights including the inherent rights of indigenous peoples, women, children, migrant and all vulnerable sectors” in the section “Various approaches, including opportunities for using markets, to enhance the cost effectiveness of, and to promote, mitigation actions” (Chapter VIII), both in brackets, though. Similar to previous sessions, women and gender NGOs and experts have mainly been following the negotiations on the AWG-LCA document, whereas the AWG-KP negotiations (Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol) received less attention. This does not mean that there is nothing relevant to gender in the Kyoto negotiations, since there is a gender dimension in mitigation, which is not as obvious as for vulnerability and adaptation, though. However - gender language is just not sufficient. It is important to look at the substance, whether it reflects women’s preferences, for instance in terms of technology choices, and whether it would exaggerate women’s discrimination. Apart from the main problem of the KP negotiations - the lack of ambitious commitment of industrialised countries - numerous crucial issues remain. The first is LULUCF (land use, land use change and forestry). At the moment, the document includes a worrying definition of forests which includes plantations, and this has not been changed in Tianjin. Second, the bracketed options for eligible technologies under CDM and JI include CCS (carbon capture and storage) and nuclear energy. However, a vast majority of women reject these risky technologies, as we know from polls in many countries. Bonn III: Climate Change Talks, August 2-6, 2010 A statement on behalf of the women and gender constituency was delivered in the LCA-Opening session on Monday, August 2, another one in the KP closing session on Friday. Both interventions are available for download in the box to the right. Gotelind Alber from GenderCC, Focal Point of the Women and Gender Constituency, chaired the first meeting of the new Executive Secretary Christiana Figueras with the civil society observers. The constituency members agreed to draft a common submission to the SBI regarding 'Arrangements for Intergovernmental Meetings - Ways to enhance the engagement of observer organizations'. Additionally, they also agreed to the common submission by most of the constituencies. GenderCC itself drafted another submission on the 'Views and information on the effectiveness of the Nairobi work programme on impacts, vulnerability and adaptation to climate change in fulfilling its objective, expected outcome, scope of work and modalities'. And finally LIFE and Gender CC joint forces for a submission to the SBI concerning 'information and views that may be relevant to the completion of the intermediate review, including information on best practices and lessons learned from the implementation of the amended New Delhi Work Programme and on remaining barriers to the effective implementation of Article 6 of the Convention'. All submissions are available for download on the UNFCCC website. Bonn II: 32. Meeting of the Subsidiary Bodies, May 31 to June 11, 2010 GenderCC, WECF, WEDO and other members of the Women and Gender Constitutency were at the thirty-second sessions of the UNFCCC Convention Subsidiary Bodies, Monday 31 May to Friday 11 June 2010. Side events Africa Adaptation Programme. Interdisciplinary approaches to Integrating Gender and Disaster Risk Reduction into Adaptation The Africa Adaptation Programme (AAP) is a three year, $92.1 million project funded by the Government of Japan operating in 20 countries across Africa. A case study on gender and climate change nexus from Ghana was presented. Hosted by UNDP Improving National Implementation: highlighting gender equality and women's participation With examples of gender plans of action from different regions, IUCN and WEDO convened partners from governments and civil society to highlight the importance of gender considerations in implementing national climate change plans. Co-hosted by IUCN and WEDO Gender and climate change research: gaps, questions, and potentials GenderCC held a side event on “Gender and climate change research: gaps, questions, and potentials”, co-hosted by LIFE, WECF, BRIDGE and GDN. The very well-attended side event aimed for introducing and discussing the current state of research within gender and climate change in specific areas, as well as for raising issues and questions and discussing suggestions for improvement. Gotelind Alber provided in her presentation an introduction and background of gender and climate change research while other presentations focused on a variety of issues such as disasters, conflicts and migration (Maira Zahur/ Pakistan), the feasibility of household and community-based projects under the CDM illustrated by examples in the Caucasus and Central Asia (Robert Müller/ WECF), the new Gender and Climate Change Cutting Edge programme of BRIDGE (Alyson Brody). Furthermore the side-event included the results of a Symposium on the same topic which GenderCC had organised beforehand. Panellists concluded together with the participants the event with a discussion on future steps and ways for improvement within the field of gender and climate change. As a follow-up to the symposium and side event, on behalf of the Women and Gender Constituency GenderCC took up the initiative to contact the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), to offer support in any possible way, e.g. to share research findings and references, and to comment on draft reports. Responding to the letter, the IPCC Secretariat welcomed the opportunity for further cooperation, and listed a number of possibilities. All presentations are available for download (please see download box above). Interventions Members of the Women and Gender Constituency held a number of interventions (see download-box to the right): Intervention by Ulrike Röhr, LIFE e.V. on Article 6 of the convention in the SBI opening session (31 May 2010). Intervention by Dorah Lebelo, GenderCC on behalf of the Women and Gender Constituency in the opening session of the AWG-LCA on 'Financing' (01 June 2010). Intervention by Sabine Bock, WECF on behalf of the Women and Gender constituency in the opening session of the AWG-KP (01 June 2010). Intervention by Maira Zahur, GenderCC on behalf of the Women and Gender constituency - SBSTA dialogue on the development in research acitivities relevant to the needs of the Convention (03 June 2010). Intervention by Rachel Harris, WEDO on behalf of the Women and Gender Constituency in the closing session of the SBSTA on REDD (10 June 2010). Women's action for climate justice On June 5th (World Environment Day) from 13:00 - 15:00, women made themselves seen and heard as part of a demonstration for climate protection and climate justice. The "Women's block", organised by EcoMujer, WECF and WLOE e.V., met at 13:00 at Kaiserplatz, Bonn. A meeting of women interested in continuing to work and network on climate justice and biodiversity issues was held following the demonstration. Get information on the "Women's block". Bonn I: Climate Change Talks, April 9-11, 2010 The first round of Climate Change negotiations since Copenhagen took place in Bonn, Germany, 9-11 April. The result of the meeting was an agreement to intensify the negotiation schedule in order to achieve a strong outcome at COP 16 in Mexico at the end of the year. The intensifying will to be done through two additional sessions, of at least one week each during the second half of the year. During the Bonn meeting, participants from GenderCC together with WEDO, WECF and LIFE held a press briefing discussing the way from Copenhagen and towards Cancun, from a gender perspective. Ulrike Röhr, LIFE, introduced the common platform, shared by the above mentioned organisation, of reasons for and ideas about gender aspects of climate change negotiations. Sandra Freitas, WEDO, continued the press briefing with emphasising the positive gender outcomes from the otherwise failure in Copenhagen. These positive trends have, according to WEDO, to be followed up by even more gender advocating on the road to COP 16, in order to get a gender equal outcome. Marine Franck, representing WECF, brought up the failure in Copenhagen and how we must go on towards Cancun in order to not face the same problems and to get a better outcome. One way to be able to achieve more in Cancun, according to Franck, is to involve civil society into the negotiations. Meetings like the one in Bonn were also mentioned as a good opportunity for delegates to gather again and a possibility to rebuild trust and hope towards Cancun. To conclude, Gotelind Alber from GenderCC continued Freitas’ discussion on the positive gender outcomes from COP 15, but meant that these progresses only can be found in some parts of the negotiations. Gender aspects are included into the “softer” issues such as adaptation, stakeholder participation and capacity building. However, Gotelind Alber brought up the remaining gaps in the “harder” issues such as mitigation, technologies and financing, where gender aspects are still lacking. GenderCC is pushing for also having gender aspects of these issues included into future climate change negotiations with COP 16 as the next big landmark. Download Presentations Disasters, Conflicts and Migration (Maira Zahur/ Pakistan) Feasibility of Household and Community-based Projects under the CDM (Robert Müller/ WECF) Gender and Climate Change Cutting Edge Programme (Alyson Brody/ BRIDGE) Download Interventions Intervention in the opening session of the AWG-LCA 12 (4 October 2010) Intervention in the closing session of the AWG-KP 13 (6 August 2010) Intervention in the opening session of the AWG-LCA 11 (2 August 2010) Intervention on REDD in the SBSTA closing session (10 June 2010) Intervention in the SBSTA Research Dialogue (03 June 2010) Intervention on Financing, AWG-LCA opening session (01 June 2010) Intervention in the opening session of the AWG-KP (01 June 2010) Intervention on Article 6 of the convention, SBI opening session (31 May 2010) Events Programme side event 7.6.2010: Gender and Climate Change research: gaps, questions, and potentials Who we are GenderCC – Women for Climate Justice is the global network of women and gender activists and experts from all world regions working for gender and climate justice. Send page Print Copyright © 2010 genderCC l All Rights Reserved