Gender Activities during UN-Meetings Related to Climate Change
The issue climate change is increasingly a main topic in international meetings and programmes. Women’s organisation take the opportunity to call attention to gender perspectives in climate change. Often they attract more attention and find more like minded delegates here than during busy UNFCCC negotiations. Additionally, these meetings may serve as a door opener for gender dimensions, because of the broader approaches they take.
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54th session CSW, 1-12 March 2010
In March 2010, the Commission on the Status of Women will undertake a fifteen-year review of the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the outcomes of the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly. Emphasis will be placed on the sharing of experiences and good practices, with a view to overcoming remaining obstacles and new challenges, including those related to the Millennium Development Goals. Member States, representatives of non-governmental organizations and of UN entities will participate in the session. A series of parallel events will provide additional opportunities for information exchange and networking.
Several workshops relating to gender and climate change will be held throughout the conference. For more information on these events please click here.
World Urban Forum 5: The Right to the City-Bridging the Urban Divide
In the space of a few short years, the World Urban Forum has turned into the world's premier conference on cities. The Forum was established by the United Nations to examine one of the most pressing problems facing the world today: rapid urbanization and its impact on communities, cities, economies, climate change and policies.
With half of humanity already living in towns and cities, it is projected that in the next 50 years, two-thirds of us will be living in towns and cities. A major challenge is to minimize burgeoning poverty in cities, improve access of the urban poor to basic facilities such as shelter, clean water and sanitation and to achieve environmentally friendly, sustainable urban growth and development.
UN-HABITAT and the Government of Brazil have started preparations for the fifth session scheduled in Rio de Janeiro 22 - 26 March 2010. The Forum brings together government leaders, ministers, mayors, diplomats, members of national, regional and international associations of local governments, non-governmental and community organizations, professionals, academics, grassroots women's organizations, youth and slum dwellers groups as partners working for better cities. The fifth session in Rio builds on the lessons and successes of the previous four events.
For more information please visit the UNHABITAT website
UN Summit on Climate Change, September 2009
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Nearly 100 world leaders accepted UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s invitation to participate in an historic Summit on Climate Change in New York on 22 September to mobilize political will and strengthen momentum for a fair, effective, and ambitious climate deal in Copenhagen this December.
Selected Civil society Organisations had the opportunity to submit a video statement to the delegated attending the meeting. GenderCC was one of them, represented by Dr. minu Hemmati. Watch the video in English (RealPlayer, YouTube, High Quality Video) or Read the text.
53rd session CSW, March 2009
Some high-level delegates connected the main theme of the CSW (“The equal sharing of responsibilities between women and men, including caregiving in the context of HIV/AIDS”) to climate change.
A panel of high-ranking African women officials called on the international community to promote gender-specific plans and programmes to help women better address the economic, food and climate-related crises plaguing the continent. Isatou Njie-Saidy, Vice-President of Gambia said on climate change that "Africa’s greenhouse gas emission rates were about 2 per cent of the global total. So, as longer-lasting droughts and more frequent floods continued to devastate parts of the continent, Africa was being punished for something it had not done. It needed to be helped out of that quagmire, especially since the impact of global warming seriously affected agriculture and, by default, women."
On behalf of the Pacific Islands Forum countries Dino Mas, Second Secretary of the Permanent Mission of Papua New Guinea to the United Nations said that the Pacific faces particular risks as a result of climate change. This could have "serious impacts on the capacity of the Pacific's formal and informal agricultural, forestry and fisheries sectors to provide food security, livelihoods and economic growth. These burdens are expected to have a disproportionate impact on women, including in the context of care-giving - given the anticipated health impacts from climate change." The statement noted "an urgent need to increase Pacific women's economic equality, not only to reduce their vulnerability to the effects of the global financial crisis but also as part of the effort to support equality in other priority areas including participation in all levels of decision-making and elimination of violence against women." The statement added, "policy interventions are needed that require the active and equal participation of women and men, that fully integrate a gender perspective" and that social and human capital needed to be at the forefront of priorities.
O'Love Jacobsen, the Minister of Health, Women's Affairs, Public Works and Energy in Niue and Chairperson of the Pacific Islands Forum delegation to CSW53, "called for formal recognition of the links between climate change, health, care-giving and gender equality."
25th Session of the Governing Council UNEP) / Pre-sessional Meeting of the Network of Women Ministers and Leaders for the Environment, February 2009
In recognition of the need to ensure gender responsive environmental policies, the Secretariat of the Governing Body of UNEP has allocated a one day Pre-session Event to the Governing Council and Global Ministerial Environment Forum (GC/GMEF) for the Network of Women Ministers and Leaders for the Environment to meet with experts and partners to discuss emerging gender issues and make concrete recommendations for inclusion took place on 15 February 2009, in Nairobi, in conjunction with GC-25/GMEF.
The forum’s objective was to discuss the themes under consideration at GC-25/GMEF from a gender perspective and decide on a list of concrete priority actions that the international community and individual governments need to address to improve the lives of women and men. Its final report and recommendations are available.
52nd session CSW, February/March 2008
On 28 February, "Gender perspectives on climate change" were considered as emerging issue for the CSW. An expert panel consisting of five gender experts, among them Minu Hemmati for the gendercc network, Anna Pinto and Rachel Nampinga, both gendercc activist, and Lorena Aguilar, IUCN, illustrated the interrelatedness of gender issues and climate change policies. The panelists contributions were followed by government statements and questions from over 20 Member States.
A side event of the CSW was addressing the gender aspects of financing adaptation to climate change.
10th Special Session of the UNEP Governing Council in Monaco, February 2008
Side event "Financing climate change from a gender and rights perspective" and meeting of the Women Ministers and Leaders for the Environment Network, co-hosted by UNEP and Women in Europe for a Common Future (WECF).
UN Secretary-General’s High Level Climate Change Event, September 2007
A High-level Roundtable "How a changing climate impact women" was co-hosted by the Council of Women World Leaders, Women’s Environment and Development Organisation (WEDO) and Heinrich-Boell-Foundation Washington.
CSD 14 and 15, 2006 and 2007:
The 14th and 15th session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development was dealing with energy for sustainable development, climate change, atmosphere/air pollution, and industrial development.
The Review Year (2006, CSD14) evaluated progress made in implementing sustainable development goals and identified obstacles and constraints, while the Policy Year (2007, CSD15) should have decided on measures to speed up implementation and mobilize action to overcome these obstacles and constraints. Gender equality was one of 12 cross cutting issues, to be taken into consideration any time.
