IMPLEMENTING THE DECLARATION OF THE

 60TH ANNUAL DPI/NGO CONFERENCE

WORKING GROUP ON STREAMLINING CLIMATE CHANGE AND GENDER

COORDINATOR

 Tara DePorte, Program Director, Lower East Side Ecology Center.   For questions & comments, please contact:  Tara@LESEcologyCenter.org
 

The intent of the chapter and working group has been to explore the link between gender issues and climate changes and made recommendations on how to mainstream gender.

Until very recently, gender issues have not played a major role in climate protection discussions. This is surprising given the situation that equity in general, especially between South and North, is regularly on the agenda and is a key issue in the climate change negotiations.

Only in the past couple of years have discussions about gender during Conference of the Parties meetings to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) been raised. At the Ninth Conference of the Parties, held in December 2003 in Milan, Italy, a network of people interested in gender issues was established. The network organized two workshops on gender and climate change at the Tenth Conference of the Parties, held in December 2004 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Activities and discussions on gender are already planned for the Eleventh Conference of the Parties to be held in November and December this year in Montreal, Canada.

Thus, at the international level of climate change negotiations, gender issues are on the rise. Moreover, many projects in developing countries are now addressing the different situation of women and men respective to their different vulnerabilities to climate change. In the industrialized countries of the North, after an absence of activities on gender and climate change, it would seem that this issue is about to be discovered.

There are a number of activities already underway. A research project at the Institute for Social-Ecological Research in Germany is dealing with gender issues and emissions trading. City networks are contributing to increase the share of women in decision making in climate change policies. The Climate Alliance of European Cities coordinated the project Climate for Change: Gender Equality and Climate Change Policy. The regional government of Lower Austria has considered gender mainstreaming within their climate change programme. All of these activities are based on the premise that climate change policies will be more effective if more women are involved and if gender issues are addressed.

Against this background the working group looked very closely at how climate change is tangent to gender relations - and vice versa.

Questions raised when dealing with climate change from a gender perspective were:

1. Are there gender differences in the perception of, and the response to, climate change?
2. Who is causing climate change, by which activities, and for what purposes? How is the polluter-pays-principle taken into account in mitigation and adaptation policies and measures?
3. Are there gender differences as to what policies and measures are preferred and, if so, what are the reasons for these differences?
4. Are women and men affected differently by the effects of climate change? What are the gender specific impacts of climate change and its resulting environmental damages?
5. Are there gender differences in negotiations and decisions on climate change policy? How and to what extent are women participating when it comes to working out and deciding about climate protection programs and measures? How do the results and programs impact gender relations, for example, climate policy guidelines and directives at the national, the European Union and the international level?

• genanet - gender, justice, sustainability, LIFE e.V., Hohenstaufenstr. 8, 60327 Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Fax: +49-69-740842. Web: www.genanet.de.
• Gender Disaster Network.  http://www.gdnonline.org/sourcebook.htm

All recommendations by a Working Group will be combined and indexed in a special chapter in the report to the Secretary General.

Research and data. We do not know enough about gender aspects of climate change, particularly in the North. For example, with regard to climate protection measures, there is no gender analysis from a Northern perspective, only, in some aspects, from a Southern perspective. All climate protection measures and programs and all instruments for mitigating climate change or adapting to climate change must be subject to a gender-focused analysis. All climate change-related data, scenarios, and so on, need to be disaggregated by gender. Gender-disaggregated data are particularly lacking for the developed world.

Relevant research needs to be developed and financed. This requires gender experts and climate researchers to engage in the issues, and it requires funders to support such research projects. Based on existing knowledge in the area of climate change as well as in other areas, specific suggestions for research projects can easily be developed and advocated.

Gender mainstreaming. Gender must be universally integrated into climate protection negotiations and policy making at national and international levels. The different needs, opportunities and goals of women and men need to be taken into account. The beginning post-2012 process offers an important opportunity.

Participation. Women must be involved in climate protection negotiations at all levels and in all decisions on climate protection. Representation by numbers is not enough. We need women represented and we need gender experts involved.

Information/publications. There is a general information deficit on climate protection and related policies. New information materials and strategies need to be developed. They need to include gender aspects, and they need to be targeted to group specific, including being tailored for women's information channels.

Monitoring. Gender mainstreaming of climate change-related research, policy making and implementation needs to be monitored at the national and international levels. This can be summarized within three main goals.

1. Closing knowledge gaps relating to gender aspects of climate change in the developed world, for example, through research and the collection of gender-disaggregated data.
2. Including more women and gender experts in climate protection-related negotiations and decision making at all levels.
3. Integrating gender-related knowledge into policy making, implementation, monitoring, and communication strategies and materials.

The above-mentioned requirements are based on the paper Gender and Climate Change in the North: Issues, Entry Points and Strategies for the Post-2012 Process and Beyond which was written by Minu Hemmati for genanet - focal point gender justice and sustainability.

If any climate protection policy ignores the afore-mentioned as well as many other, proven or as yet only suspected, gender aspects, it cannot be accepted as sustainable, since it would have a counter-productive effect on gender equality. Without taking gender aspects into consideration, the task of preventing climate change will be difficult to achieve.

Gender-just participation and recognition of gender relations will lead to a more comprehensive view of climate change. The full diversity of social groups and their living situations are more likely to be taken into account. Children, the elderly and migrants, for example, will be taken into rightful account. This will, in turn, lead to improvement of the measures, and to a higher acceptance of gender issues amongst the global populace.