News from GenderCC

GenderCC is working together with the University of Bremen (Germany) on a new project which will make available the findings of gender studies for climate change related technological and social transition processes. Moreover, the project aims to promote and strengthen a network of women scientists in the fields of climate change research, climate protection and climate adaptation. This will be achieved with a series of workshops, conferences, and other types of events, which will further develop and disseminate results and strategies related to the gender dimensions of climate change. In parallel, a national competence and expert network will be built up and an interactive communication platform will be developed; the results of the project and guidelines for the implementation of gender equality and equal opportunities in the field of climate change will be provided in a booklet. The project will run until spring 2016 and is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research.

Gender @ UNFCCC

GenderCC will be attending the Bonn Climate Conference from June 1-11 in Bonn, Germany, where many decisions are likely to be made prior to COP21 in Paris. The Women and Gender Constituency will be meeting daily and a shared side-event is planned. In addition, the UNFCCC will conduct an in-session workshop on implementing the Lima Work Programme on Gender, which is likely to take place at the beginning of the second week. Please check the GenderCC website closer to the date for more information or to get involved in our activities.

Activities of the Gender and Climate Change Community

The Institute of Environment and Water Management (IEWM) in Kenya is currently engaged in a number of activities relating to gender and climate change. For example, IEWM has conducted Women Leadership Circle Forums, which aim to define interventions geared towards increasing women’s participation in agriculture and natural resource management. The institute is also part of the Gender and Climate Change Working Group – a network of organizations and individuals working towards climate smart policies, decision-making and programs. It was initiated in 2010 and has been advocating for inclusion of gender and social concerns in climate change in Kenya. The network has succeeded in influencing the national climate change action planning processes, engaging various Ministries and government institutions through organized gender advocacy, training and capacity building of state and non-state actors on gender equality mainstreaming in climate change, organising and facilitating gender and climate change multi-stakeholder dialogues and round tables, knowledge management and submitting text to the Ministry of Environment  on Kenya’s submission to the UNFCCC on how to advance its Decision on Gender.
Furthermore, IEWM is participating in the road to Paris regional meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to advocate for the inclusion of gender and women’s issues in COP 21. They are identifying challenges, success, gaps and recommendations for improved responses to climate change and post 2015 SDGs and plan to highlight the importance of promoting women technological innovations on climate adaptation.

News on Gender and Climate Change

GenderCC members World Rainforest Movement from Uruguay have published a bulletin focusing on women's struggles and resistance in the face of climate change. Read the current issue or subscribe to receive the monthly bulletin. 

Who is who at GenderCC

Georgia Betros is an Australian student who just completed a semester at Humboldt University in Berlin. She studies a dual degree consisting of a Bachelor of Music and a Bachelor of Arts with a focus on Political Science and Journalism. Georgia has been interested in notions of the Other (in music and politics) which lead to her interest in gender. First and foremost, she values the endeavour for climate justice, and so appreciates the intersectional approach taken by GenderCC. She values the importance of unmasking pervasive constructions of knowledge and would like to pursue the area of progressive politics.

Publications

WEDO (2014): UNFCCC Decisions and Conclusions: Existing Mandates and Entry Points for Gender Equality. WEDO have developed a policy guide that will be helpful in advancing gender in the lead up to COP21 in Paris this year. The purpose of the guidebook is to support decision-makers, negotiators and advocates in mapping current decisions that contain specific references to gender equality (e.g. gender balance or gender-sensitive approaches) as well as identifying gaps (i.e. key entry points for strengthening concepts and text). Global Green Grants et al. (2015): Climate Justice and Women's Rights. A Guide to Supporting Grassroots Women's Action. This guide addresses an urgent need within the funding community and offers concrete, practical guidance that orients grantmakers to the importance of funding at the intersection of climate justice and women’s rights, and draws lessons from specific examples of funding for women’s climate change initiatives. CARE (2015): 2015 and Beyond: Action for a Just, Gender-Equitable and Sustainable Future. With the acknowledgment that social inequality and the injustice of climate change not only reinforce each other, this publication seeks to offer a comprehensive outline of recommendations for tackling gender and climate change. This involves promoting gender-equitable and sustainable development in the face of climate change for the ongoing 2015 policy processes, including the SDGs, the UNFCCC negotiations, and the post-2015 disaster risk reduction framework. Sara Holmgreen and Seema Arora-Jonson (2015): The Forest Kingdom – with what values for the world? Climate Change and Gender Equality in a Contested Forest Policy Context. Drawing on new institutionalism, critical discourse theory and gender as an analytical category, the authors of this article examine the Swedish government’s vision for the forest sector and argue that climate change was seen as a business opportunity, where women were represented as potential employees and active forest owners connected to the needs of the industry, rather than active citizens involved in forest policy-making. Sadegh Salehi et al. (2015): Gender, responsible citizenship and global climate change.
This article looks at women as prominent figures in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions because of the type of activities they carry out in the household. Their study, involving 310 Iranian residents, aimed to assess gender-related awareness of climate change issues, and the engagement of citizens in climate change mitigation based on eco-feminist theory and the socio-cultural features of citizen households in Iran.

Calendar of Events

• 1 – 11 June 2015, Bonn, Germany: Bonn Climate Conference. The forty-second sessions of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI 42) and the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA 42), as well as the June session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP2-9). An in-session workshop on gender is currently planned for the second week.

• 6 - 8 July 2015, University of East Anglia, UK: Conference: Gender Relations and Increasing Inequalities. This conference aims to bring together leading academics, researchers and research scholars for a sustained consideration of changing gender relations in contexts of rising inequality, and new ways of thinking about gender relations. One of the 7 panels will focus on environmental/climatic change and gendered inequalities.