Intervention from women and gender constituency

Jo Tenner from Australia made the following intervention yesterday:

Mr Chairman, my name is Jo Tenner, I come from Australia which is the world's highest per capita emitter of greenhouse gases. I speak today on behalf of the Gender and Women's Caucus and GenderCC.

Gender is about all of us, men and women, it is crucial to understanding the social and economic context in which policies, programs and legislation are constructed. This is no less true for the case of climate change.

The focus of my comments today is on the mitigation dimensions of climate change. As we know the vast majority of emissions have come from developed countries, when we examine the attitudes of their people we find that mitigation is gendered.

Significantly, in the countries that will have to undertake the greatest mitigation efforts, women express higher levels of concern about climate change as well as greater levels of willingness to take action in their own lives to mitigate climate change.

Unfortunately, this level of concern is not matched by women's representation in decision making on climate change, nor are women adequately enabled to take actions in our own lives to abate emissions.

Many women have undertaken activities to lessen their carbon footprint but in the absence of an effective international agreement, these efforts are negated by the continued growth in emissions.

An acceptable outcome from these negotiations includes both: very ambitious, effective commitments from developed countries in the form of emissions cuts and funding for mitigation and adaptation in developing countries, as well as strong language on gender. Only one of these two is not sufficient. Developed nations must resolve this, the women of your countries expect nothing less.

Thanks you.