Women & Climate Change

Heat Waves, Water and Health

2010-07-10T23:07:00.002+01:00

Health warnings are being issued in extreme conditions as the temperatures in the UK reach 31C (87.8F) and this will affect women more than men. The current hot temperatures have triggered health alerts from the Met Office. It warned this weekend that night-time temperatures were of major concern. Wayne Elliot is the head of health forecasting for the Met and says “High humidity and the lack of a breeze could make matters worse for people with underlying health problems.”

In heat wave conditions women suffer much more than men, being less able to regulate their internal body temperature effectively especially over sixty years of age.

In the European heat wave in 2003, the excess mortality for women was 75% higher than that for men of all ages. Similarly, the excess mortality in the 1995 heat wave in Greater London was more pronounced for women, in ways that cannot entirely be accounted for by age. While the explanation is complex, factors are likely to include poverty, which affects women in all cities and countryside areas statistically more than men. Other key factors are deprivation and living alone, vulnerability to associated air pollution and the associated risks of dehydration of the body.

Water is essential for all life. Drinking water is the most obvious solution but of course for women around the world, but safe cool drinking water is not necessary available. In temperatures reaching 47C in India already in 2010 families have found that cool water is only available during the early morning 2am – 5am as pipes have heated in the entire system due to prolonged and extreme temperatures during the daytime hours.

In the heat and dry season women in many developing nations have to walk further each year to find safe water for drinking and cooking, spending up to 8 hours a day on the road, often in dangerous and tiring conditions spending 40 billion hours every year hauling up water. In Africa, women do 90% of the work of gathering water and food, and children, in particular girls, often share these responsibilities. Concern has been raised by many developmental NGOs regarding the widespread practise of sending girls to collect water instead of sending them to school.

Already one third of the world’s population faces water shortages and that figure is expected to rise to two thirds by 2025. Even with a moderate increase in global temperatures of 1oC it is estimated that the small glaciers in the Andes will disappear, threatening water supplies in South America for 50 million people. A 2oC increase would decrease water availability across the planet by 20-30%.

Met Office Heat Wave Advice
Before a heatwave
• Ensure you have plenty of cold fluids available.
During a heatwave
• Try to keep your house cool, closing blinds or curtains can help.
• At night, keep your sleeping area well ventilated. Night cooling is important as it allows the body to recuperate.
• Try to stay cool by taking cool showers or baths and/or sprinkle yourself several times a day with cold water.
• Avoid too much exercise, which can cause heat exhaustion or heat stroke, and can even be fatal. Watch for signs of heat stress — an early sign is fatigue.
• Drink plenty of fluids, but not alcohol, which dehydrates the body.
• Try to eat as you normally would. Not eating properly may exacerbate health-related problems.
• If driving, keep your vehicle well ventilated to avoid drowsiness. Take plenty of water with you and have regular rest breaks.
• If you have elderly neighbours who may be at risk during a heatwave, try to visit them daily.
• If you do go out, try and avoid the hottest part of the day (11 a.m. to 3 p.m.) and seek shade where possible. Avoid being in the sun for long stretches.
Before going out in the sun
• Check you have appropriate sun cream for your particular type of skin.
During sunny weather
• The UV index (the strength of the sun) can be high at many times of the year — it doesn't have to be hot. The UV index can be strong through cloud even when the sun isn't directly shining.
• If you go out, wear lightweight, light-coloured clothing, high factor sunscreen and a wide-brimmed hat.
• Avoid being in the sun for long stretches.
• Reapply an appropriate factor sun cream at regular intervals during the day.
Do not leave children or animals in parked cars. Even on cool days, strong sunshine can make car interiors very hot.

Women's Representation in Politics & Policy

2010-04-11T15:52:00.001+01:00

This week saw the first all women NASA space shuttle journey when Naoko Yamazaki, Stephanie Wilson and Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger made history into herstory in Florida.

But elsewhere it has not been a good week for women. With just 19% women in parliament we now wait to see how many will be re-elected and how representative the government will be. Based on the last weeks performance from the top parties they will be woefully inadequate, in all the coverage I failed to see any key women speaking about their politics other than the Green Party leader, Caroline Lucas MEP who is standing for MP in Brighton.

It really does matter if more women are elected. Female political representation means women's interests are more likely to taken into account at a leadership level. Steps have to be taken in political decision making forums to address problems in a gender sensitive way and when they so often are not, men are not necessarily there remembering we exist. In fact there is evidence that without women, policies are introduced that are unhelpful to women, increasing our workload, exacerbating gender discrimination and widening inequalities.

There is evidence that developed countries with higher levels of female political representation have been most successful in reducing their carbon dioxide levels overall. In fact of the 16 countries ranked by the UNDP as having high human development which had reduced CO2 emissions between 1990 and 2004, 13 had a higher proportion of female politicians.

Strong evidence also exists over a number of years, that women tend to be more concerned about environmental issues than men. It has also been shown that when they are allowed in the negotiations, they influence the outcome with female policy-makers tending to favour education and behaviour change methods over technological solutions.

The world economic system is patriarchal and women statistically hold few positions f power globally. Men dominate decision making in the most polluting industries too, which have failed to prioritise climate change. In fact, the Women's Environmental Network report Gender and the Climate Change Agenda, shows that of those companies responsible for 67% of the FTSE 100 emissions had 100% male chief executives, and of the 42 combined committee members, only 6 were female.

In fact women represent only 17% of FTSE boardroom appointments, and constitute only 19% of scientists and engineers. The Norwegian government took a risk in 2003 when they made a law stating boardrooms had to have 40% females. Business was furious and resisted but from just 6% representation the target was met ahead of schedule. Research highlighted the fact that the policy had improved the quality of the debate and the financial performance.

But equal representation between men and women in politics is right and just because it is our right as human beings, not because of environmental gains that may be possible. There are so many reasons why we need to have an equal and just world, being inclusive seems to me to be one of the very fundamentals.

Women's Environmental Network report available to download free: www.wen.org/resources

Poverty and Empowerment

2010-03-26T19:32:00.002Z

A new report from the United States compares the UK record on poverty with other countries and the results are actually remarkable.

The Columbia University Professor Jane Waldfogel presented her findings this week in New York. In fact she shows that the UK has managed to reduce absolute poverty in children by a half since 1999, that's some 1.7 million children whose lives have been changed. America did not do so well and still has 20% of their children in absolute poverty. Other European countries found that their poverty levels have only stagnated at the same levels and they have been unable to unlock the secrets to success.

Women are particularly affected by poverty and their empowerment helps them bring their children with them into a better future. 90% of all single parents are female headed households with dependant children in the UK. These families will disproportionately suffer from fuel poverty, economic support and opportunities to increase their life chances such as access to higher education.

What has worked so far in the UK is a complex series of measures that have involved local and national government programmes to empower children and to support low paid workers, which have especially helped women. Economic credits have included the Sure Start children's programme and working family and children's credits. Other measures have been specific programmes that identify specific children in need of support at an early age and at a street by street level.

Women who lead families are more likely to spend their meagre incomes on essential items for the whole family such as food, fuel and clothing. Their national and global impact on the environment is negligible in every single sense.

Women's Environmental Network have pioneered a programme to influence and empower women and their dependent children in poverty in the UK. For more than ten years WEN has been supporting women and women's groups to grow their own food. This is healthy, sustainable, organic and superior quality fresh food. In one holistic project, local sustainability in action affects the health and quality of life of every single member of the family.

Rosie Boycott, London Mayor Boris Johnson's "Food Tsar" visited one of our Cultivating the Future projects in December 2009, and she, like the local police, were very impressed.

"A few weeks before I took up my job as the Mayor's food adviser, I went to see some food-growing projects in the capital, the first being in the centre of four ugly grey tower blocks in Tower Hamlets.

Unlike many such places I've since visited, this space wasn't full of rubbish, old beer cans, used condoms or yesterday's crumpled newspapers.

Keys were needed to enter the garden, which was surrounded by a cheery, bright-blue fence and divided into three sections: one for a kids' play area with swings and slides, one with picnic tables and a barbecue and the third, a series of raised beds where women of many nationalities were growing herbs and vegetables, talking and laughing as they did so.

The project was the brainchild of the Women's Environmental Network, which aims to make life better for women in very practical ways.

Its great work on the garden has spun off other benefits. Now all the residents felt safe to walk through the central space because it is tidy and litter-free."

WEN had found that there was very little practical help for women from ethnically diverse backgrounds living together in areas of deprivation like those in Tower Hamlets and cultivating the future was the response. Women involved have realised other health, social and educational benefits. The project has encouraged women to reconnect with nature and grow traditional vegetables from their homelands. The wider community is affected, with many other local people becoming interested in sustainability and community empowerment.

From its success the Taste of a Better Future national network of community food growing projects has evolved, with groups meeting in the popular Culture Kitchen evens when women come together and share their ideas and stories while sharing the fruits of their labour in cooking and feasting. One such event was held this March by WEN in London's East End.

WEN was also recently praised for its empowerment programme Getting to the Roots, which trains volunteers to support new and existing groups offering specific skills, education and training and personal confidence and empowerment.

But to wholly integrate sustainable practices these projects need to be mainstream, in almost every housing estate, using all available land and gardens, plots and spare earth or fields. People and especially those in dire need of help and support, can be taught how to grow their own food.

The cost to a government if one of their departments paid for this sort of WEN project is about £200 per person, per year. That's not a lot if you compare most training programmes, offering slim deliverables and no job at the end of the training. For women in London, these projects offer a lifeline, to a better healthier future for their whole families.

For those in poverty, the ability to eat fresh organic produce created by your own hand is a priceless gift for the environment and each family.

They can stop buying costly vegetables from supermarkets, uniformly produced, expensively packaged, environmentally tarnished, from pesticide use to transportation and even air freighted, sometimes refrigerated for good measure, which can even be peeled for "convenience".

Millions of people could be eating more healthily, and growing foods that they like and will enjoy more. From an exercise and health perspective, growing your own food is fabulous. Forget the gym or running, putting energy into gardening will pay off handsomely in terms of personal health and fitness.

Urban food growing could be really big.
Urban food growing should be really big.
This could be the big idea for the whole country to get behind to create a greener, more local, more prosperous and safer future. What better to help people in poverty than to give them seeds and tools and education so those that want can help themselves?

Gender & the Climate Change Agenda

2010-03-03T20:43:00.002Z

Last night in the House of Commons Grand Committee Room, in an event chaired by WEN matron and Liberal party shadow health spokesperson, Sandra Gidley MP, WEN set out the case for ecological feminism. Our report, Gender and the Climate Change Agenda was launched giving a comphrensive overview of how the current economic and political model creates climate change and exacerbates and exploits poverty and lack of democracy in women.

The reports conclusions include a sobering fact, that women constitute up to 80% of climate refugees, thats 20 million women who have already lost their homes and livelihoods due to climate change related weather chaos. The IPCC say that extreme weather conditions are set to increase and become more frequent. The United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction shows clearly that since 1970 the numbers of extreme weather events increased from around 25 per year for floods to 200 per year with incidences of droughts, wind storms and related disasters also increasing. As we discovered in Copenhagen, climate change is already causing chaos around the world and disproportionately claiming women's lives, safety and health.

Nicky Gavron, former Deputy Mayor of London, said at the launch "this is a firecracker of a report, comphrensive and will become a very, very important document." She spoke passionately about her meetings with Mayors from around the world and the Practical Cities project she was involved in targeting now 40 cities to lower their CO2 emissions. Her overriding message was that Collaboration not Competition is a recipie for success.

Peter Ainsworth is MP for East Surrey and Chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Environment and Sustainable Aviation. He spoke highly of the report and its contents and urging us to remember that the recent scientific debate around the evidence of climate changes were irrelevant.

Natalie Bennett from the Green Party, Tamsin Omond from Climate Rush, Eugenie Harvey from the 10:10 movement, Betty Moxon from WI and Maria Adebowale from Capacity Global were also speakers at the inspirational launch event.

You can download the report free at www.wen.org.uk

A Spiritual Perspective on Climate Change

2010-02-25T21:49:00.002Z

Climate change is being discussed in Copenhagen in terms of numbers, money and technology which often ignore people and the truth that the earth is a living system. By looking at symptoms and failures of these systems we reduce and dissect ourselves and our world into boxes that don’t fit together.

Many people see the failures to understand the interconnectedness and the relationships between the parts and processes of the living systems as part of the problem. The fragmentation of systems, governments and institutions keeps citizens minds fragmented and disorientated and therefore disempowered.

Never before has the planet faced such an unprecedented emergency, and the need to join up our thinking is now more urgent than ever before. The issue of climate change brings together and exacerbates all the crisis of humanity; poverty, hunger and disease, desertification, loss of forests, lack of safe drinking water, drought and weather related disasters.

Many indigenous peoples share a spiritual vision, that the earth is a sacred, unified and interrelated living organism, rather than a toy or business to be exploited for financial gain or political power.

The poorest and most vulnerable people on the earth are suffering the most and disproportionately from climate change. Already 26 million have lost their homes, some 20 million of them are women. The future predictions are catastrophic for the worlds poor and COP15 is reluctant to discuss solutions that are people based rather than technological or financially based.

This lack of humanitarian and holistic vision is the core problem of our system. Caucus groups for indigenous people, women, youth and poor were under-represented, considered a sideline rather than a central issue. This further alienates and ignores those very agents of change that can create solutions and human scale visions.

Brahma Kumaris is one of the worlds leading spiritual organisations with a women led and women’s focus to their mission. They were founded in 1937 by 97 women in India and now have branches in over 100 countries. Their humanitarian work has been recognised by the UN where they have consultative status with ECOSOC and UNICEF. Their solar feeding programme in India supports tens of thousands of people in poverty and projects include teaching positive thinking to prisoners across the world.

The intellectual leader of Brahma Kumaris, and one of only a few female spiritual leaders with such a global platform, Dadi Janki, was in Copenhagen and asked for a new consciousness, a profound shift in awareness and thinking to include an inner dimension, to transform the quality of conversation and the possible agenda for action among stakeholders. She asked us to expand our vision to see the whole delicate system instead of being blinded by our own desires.

Women discouraged, but committed to hope and action

2009-12-22T15:40:00.002Z

The four main organisations (GenderCC, WEDO, WECF and Life eV) have just put out a final joint press release giving their evaluation of the outcomes from Copenhagen. Here it is:

PRESS RELEASE: WOMEN DISCOURAGED BY COP OUTCOME – BUT COMMITTED TO HOPE AND ACTION FOR 2010

The lives of millions of people are at stake, entire nations are expected to disappear under the ocean, and yet world leaders in Copenhagen failed to commit to necessary measures for an equitable, just and legally binding post-Kyoto agreement to tackle climate change.

The women’s organizations comprising the Women and Gender Constituency under the UNFCCC– including WECF, GenderCC, WEDO, LIFE and others– are dismayed by the lack of progress. Women are among the most urgently affected by climate change and, at the same time, key agents of change - and we see that there is no time to lose.

As UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer puts it, the Copenhagen summit was “a rollercoaster ride”. Far from a comprehensive agreement to tackle the world’s most comprehensive problem, the outcome of the Copenhagen Conference of Parties was a mere “Copenhagen Accord”, negotiated by a small group of the key countries, and “noting” the necessity to contain global warming to the 2 degree C limit. The Accord calls for commitments by industrialized countries and engagement of developing countries, but does little to specify how this will occur. Even more concerning, not all countries even agreed to acknowledge this step due to the dominance of world superpowers in drafting the Accord.

With current promises on the table, global warming will reach well beyond the 2 degree limit; scientists on site urged that this type of inaction will actually result in a 3.5 degree increase this century. With even the most optimistic outlook, the outcome of Copenhagen suggests the inevitable: small islands will disappear, global economies and states’ security will be in jeopardy, and those populations in already fragile positions will be further entrenched in poverty, the world over.

While gender-sensitive text remained in the negotiating documents until the end, these texts mean nothing without an overall outcome which will protect the lives and livelihoods of everyone on Earth. As the AWG-LCA process is now mandated to continue until COP-16 in Mexico, the strategies for ensuring gender responsive texts be maintained and strengthened must go hand-in-hand with the message that every country must step up and commit to action.

The Women and Gender Constituency further expresses grave concern over the issue of transparency and access at the Copenhagen COP. The failure to ensure conference accessibility to the thousands of accredited civil society representatives was a dire indication of the inability to tackle climate change in a comprehensive, equitable, transparent and just way. Many partners came well prepared with presentations, research materials, documentation and personal testimony – all ready to contribute to a real outcome of the COP. Many of these partners were never granted access to the Bella Center, limiting the options for finding a solution to climate change, silencing their voices, tossing millions of dollars into a place ill-equipped to receive its visitors. An evaluation of this process must be conducted immediately in order to ensure that these mistakes will not be repeated in the future.

Is there still hope? There must be. To give up on the process would be to give up on millions of people whose lives depend on a strong, legally binding agreement. There must be individual action, committing to change and making a difference at the household, community, regional and national levels; there must be renewed commitment by our world leaders to look beyond mitigation as a burden on GDP. Women are ready; we are committed to this process and remain optimistic that tackling climate change offers an unprecedented opportunity to transform towards sustainable, low-carbon, transparent, equitable and just economies.

At the global and national levels, we therefore call for
- increasing the number of women chairs in the UNFCCC
- meaningful participation of women and men from all sectors in national and global climate policies
- strengthening a commitment to prioritize the most vulnerable, and strengthening gender-sensitive approaches in the draft Mexico agreement
- increasing access for women to existing mitigation and adaptation funds

At the individual level - in every aspect of our daily lives – we call upon women and men to secure the future of our children and our grandchildren as consumers, educators, advocates and leaders
- to make use of our power as consumers, and to support services and products which are healthy for the climate and the planet

Without a binding agreement, the only real success of Copenhagen can become a broader movement of citizens and consumers, fueled by the behavior of each to switch to a sustainable way of life, and can become the base for a global, ambitious, equitable, legally binding agreement for climate protection in Mexico next year. It is not too late yet; we must not lose hope.

The verdict

2009-12-21T23:45:00.002Z

Since Saturday morning, there has been much discussion of the outcome (or rather lack of outcome) of the negotiations in Copenhagen. Yet the intervention made by Ulrike Roehr from LIFE e.V. on Friday anticipated the final result, and summarises the frustrations we have felt over the last two weeks. Here it is:

Your Excellencies, distinguished delegates, dear colleagues and friends inside and outside Bella Center.

It is our specific role as Women and Gender civil society organizations to work towards the integration of gender perspectives in all aspects of climate policy.

We started from zero: In the past, the gender dimension was completely absent. But as we strengthen our engagement with the UNFCCC, encouraged by the support from some governments, several references to women and to gender have been incorporated in the draft text.

However, the gender aspects in the current text are still weak. And, even more importantly, gender considerations in the decisions can only be as good as the outcomes of this meeting overall. After weeks and weeks of negotiations, there are still no firm and worthwhile commitments on the table. Today, developed countries are still not committing themselves on the real solutions. It is also appalling and alarming that civil society has been effectively excluded from its already marginal participation.

During the last two days, we have heard many eloquent speeches. Yet what we urgently need, is action. Not a political declaration, but commitments. Not “continued high growth” but fundamental changes of how we live and consume in industrialized countries and how we share the Earth´s resources nationally and globally. Not lukewarm reduction goals but deep emission cuts and significant public funding that can really bail us out from this climate crisis.

We believe that the climate crisis is a mere symptom of a larger and long standing human crisis. There are no instant solutions. We need to engage by immediately starting a collective learning process. We need radical changes, and we need to make them together.

Give us Hope – Hagen! Give us hope!

Tears and smiles

2009-12-18T21:43:00.002Z

I have little to report from the official negotiations, but despite - or perhaps because - of this, it's been an emotional day. Several times today I have cried out of anger and frustration that those with the power to help secure an agreement have failed to do so. I spent an hour in the Oksnehallen, a hall that has been opened up next door to the alternative summit to accomodate those excluded from the Bella Center, watching one world leader after another, all men, deliver their set-piece speeches. It's hard not to feel like crying when Obama fails to improve on the US's pathetic offer at emissions reductions, or Rudd suggests that we will not be able to reach the two degree target because of developing countries' actions.

Yet my spirits have been kept up by activities that have been going on in spite of the inaction inside the conference. At lunchtime those in the Oksnehallen were treated to the presentation of the "Fossil of the year" award. Each day Climate Action Network have asked NGOs to vote for a "fossil of the day" award, for the country that has performed the worst in the previous day's negotiations. As a result of winning the daily award most during the conference, Canada took the prestigious annual award in a hilarious award ceremony.

This afternoon I heard a speech from the mother of a campaigner who was arrested for helping to organise the demonstrations earlier in the week, and who still hasn't been released. She was justifiably angry about her daughter's treatment, yet managed to cheer and fire us up by getting us all singing.

And the closing ceremony of Klimaforum was a reminder of how much has been achieved outside the official conference in terms of building networks and a movement which will carry on pushing for the necessary action on climate change long after the delegates, and Klimaforum participants, have left the city. I left behind a hall full of passionate individuals, dancing to Danish klezmer orchestra Mames Babegenush - it could be a wild night for many.

Tommorrow I leave Copenhagen for home, so this may be my last blog. As yet there's no information as to whether a deal has been reached - a close friend who is one of the few NGO representatives who was admitted to the Bella Center today says that they are due for an update in the next hour or so. A member of GenderCC is also inside the Bella Center - keep an eye on their website for the latest news on the outcome of the talks from a gender perspective.

When there are no people, how can there be women?

2009-12-18T09:03:00.002Z

GenderCC released a press release last night reflecting the feeling at the Women's caucus. It concludes that:

"There is no participation in partition. There is no process without people.
There is no climate justice without gender justice.
There is no gender justice without climate justice."

You can read the whole press release here.

Women's caucus

2009-12-17T17:19:00.001Z

Every morning since the conference started, there has been a Women’s caucus meeting in the conference centre, to allow women and organisations representing women to meet, share information and strategise. On Monday, WEN’s Chair, Bernadette chaired the meeting, and yesterday I had the privilege of doing so.

Today, only 300 people representing NGOs were allowed into the Bella Center, so the six organisations of the Women’s caucus, representing 2% of all NGOs, were allowed one representative each. There was therefore little point in holding the women’s caucus inside the conference centre, so it was moved to KULU, a women’s centre in central Copenhagen.

The few of us who were able to get the information about the new arrangements and make it to the new venue were in low spirits. There is a feeling among NGOs that they are being deliberately excluded from the UN process, with respected NGOs such as Friends of the Earth being completely banned. Those of us present at the caucus reflected that, even if there were legitimate concerns about the number of people accredited exceeding the capacity of the conference centre, this is something that could have been foreseen weeks ago: NGOs had to submit their lists of representatives by mid November. Had those representing civil society had known that they might not be allowed access to the conference centre, they could have considered how else to engage in this important process, and whether it was worthwhile them spending valuable resources to travel to Copenhagen at all.

It seems that if the UN is unable to properly organise an international conference, there is little chance of them facilitating an agreement to take the action to tackle climate change that is desperately needed. With one day to go, it is doubtful that anything will be agreed, and even more doubtful that it will be fair and as ambitious as necessary.

Copenhagen on wheels

2009-12-17T13:06:00.005Z

As the workshop on gender and climate change responses that I was due to go to this afternoon has been cancelled, I thought I'd share some of my reflections on Copenhagen as a city.

I've been really impressed by how many people in Copenhagen get around on human-powered wheels, both on bikes, and for the younger ones, in prams.

There was heavy snow yesterday evening, but that didn't stop my host leaving for work by bike this morning. Copenhagen is a city build for cycling, not one that cyclists have to squeeze themselves into - there are wide and consistent cycle lanes, separated from the rest of the traffic, with separate traffic signals. As a result, cycling is the norm, leaving quiet roads where much of the traffic is buses. By contrast, as a cyclist in London, I often feel I'm regarded with sympathy and incredulity, and have to be a confident and assertive rider to be safe.

In the UK, despite women's generally greener attitudes, significantly fewer women than men cycle, but the women who do cycle are more likely to be involved in cycling accidents. This is because women tend to be less confident cyclists, for example, riding close to the kerb when approaching junctions which puts them are risk of collisions with turning vehicles which are less likely to have seen them. Organisations like London Cycle Campaign are working hard to address this, but with policies like that introduced by London Mayor Boris Johnson to allow motorbikes in bus (and cycle) lanes, who can blame them? We need strong policies to make pro-environment behaviour such as cycling easier.

When it comes to prams, I've been surprised both by the number of prams, and the number of men pushing them. Scandanavia countries have much more progressive policies on maternity and paternity leave, allowing parents flexibility in how they divide up caring responsibilities for their children. Compare this with the UK, where women have the right to a year off work to care for their new baby, compared with just two weeks for men. The result is that, right from the start, it is very difficult for men to share caring responsibilities with their female partners, and so they fall predominantly to women, reinforcing the gendered division of labour even where a couple would like to share family caring responsibilities more evenly.

One reason that climate change affects women in particular ways relates to the social roles that they tend to take. This is not to suggest that traditional female roles are of lesser value, but that both genders need choices as to whether to take them. The pre-budget report last week provides some hope for new parents in the UK: from April 2010 the Government propose to introduce a policiy which will allow new fathers after 1 April 2011 to take up to 26 weeks leave once the mother has returned to work. While this allows less flexibility than the arrangements in many Scandanavian countries, it represents considerable progress in addressing the structural factors that force women and men to adopt particular roles in society.

Image: efeb (creative commons)

Gender champions in Copenhagen

2009-12-17T09:28:00.002Z

Though the outcome at the talks in Copenhagen are currently looking grim, there were two bits of good news from the Women's caucus yesterday. (Apologies for the delay in getting these to you - it's been difficult getting internet access.)

First, the Women's caucus and the Women and Gender constituency held their second Gender Champion Awards to honour two more countries which have continued to promote a strong gender focus in the negotiations of COP 15. The awards highlight the great effort made by delegations in trying to bring a gender approach back into negotiated COP15 document, and also for their efforts at home.

The first award of the week went to Ghana. Ghana has committed itself to the promotion of gender in climate change adaptation and mitigation, through:
. Setting up a focal point on gender and climate change at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
. Collaboration between the gender focal point of the EPA with other government institutions such as the Ministry of Women's and Children's Affairs (MOWAC) and civil society organizations such as ABANTU for Development to incorporate gender responsive measures in combating desertification in Ghana.
. Incorporating gender issues and indicators into the proposal for the National Adaption Plan to ensure that the differential experiences, knowledge and perspectives of women and men become core issues to be addressed.
. Having developed a gender responsive national disaster risk management/reduction plan/programme by the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) in collaborating with civil society.
Furthermore, at the COP, the Ghana Team is promoting gender sensitive approaches, as were evident from the president's speech, the speech of the Minister of Environment (who is also a woman), and presentations on REDD, adaptation, and capacity building.

The second award goes to Iceland, for including a strong gender language into the shared vision document last Friday.

Second, it is looking promising that language acknowledging gender will be included in the two main texts which are being negotiated at the talks. While this doesn't mean that we are close to an agreement that is fair, ambitious and binding, it does show that gender considerations are moving up the agenda. For more detail, see the Global Gender and Climate Allaince press release.

Intervention from women and gender constituency

2009-12-16T08:05:00.002Z

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.

Civil society locked out

2009-12-15T18:44:00.007Z

Changes to the entry arrangements to the UN conference meant I wasn't able to attend the women's caucus or any other events inside the conference centre today. Today and tomorrow, only 7,000 slots are being given to civil society organisations (CSOs). On Thursday, only 1,000 participants from CSOs will be accommodated, and the numbers will be further reduced on Friday as only 90 participants from CSOs will be granted entrance to the Bella Centre.

Gotelind Alber, the focal point of the Women and Gender Constituency expressed our concerns clearly: “This is quite a serious process and civil society is being marginalised. If people had known that they would not access the convention centre, they would have explored other ways to link up with this process. We are also worried for the small organisations that already had difficulty being here. It is likely that they would not be able to get in at all on Thursday and Friday.” This is a particular concern for participants from developing countries, for whom finding the resources to travel here and stay can be a huge challenge.

However, it looks like tomorrow there are enough passes for everyone from GenderCC, who WEN is accredited through, so I should be able to attend. However, there is no chance that I will be able to get into the conference centre on Thursday or Friday, when the numbers are even further limited.

So instead I spent today at Klimaforum, where there were plenty of interesting happenings. A group of feminist dancers, the Latin American Irate Panthers, performed several times during the day, with chants in their routine including "emissions down, women's rights up!" and "there is no climate justice without gender and social justice". Their performance was invigorating, and a great way of drawing attention to the gender issues around climate change which, even in the alternative summit, aren't getting that much attention. You can now see the action for yourself at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiR21BuBEck

This afternoon a "political salon" on gender and climate change, held in a participatory way so that anyone could contribute, resulted in some interesting debate, particularly around whether gender mainstreaming within the new agreement documents will be sufficient, or whether more fundamental change is required.

Finally, the winner of the Angry Mermaid Award (see photo above), for the big business which has done the best lobbying to block effective action to tackle climate change while also seeking to benefit from it, was announced. Monsanto came away with the award, for promoting its genetically modified (GM) crops as a solution to climate change and pushing for its crops to be used as biofuels (the expansion of GM soy in Latin America is contributing to major deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions), followed by Shell and the American Petroleum Institute.

Image: jodyecolabs (creative commons)

Not Waving But Drowning

2009-12-15T08:41:00.002Z

The 9 tiny Islands that make up the state of Tuvalu is located between Fiji and Hawaii, close the equator and with a landmass of just 26km2. Nearly 10,000 Polynesian people live on these islands and have lived in harmony with the emerald green seas around them for thousands of years.

In just 10 years however the sea has risen dramatically, and they have lost at least 20 meters of land as well as suffering from dramatic and damaging flooding. Sea water has damaged their crops repeatedly now and the Islanders have felt the fragility of their situation. Ground water is contaminated and much local food is now inedible.

One of the extraordinary consequences of the floods has been the search for food. Now the Tuvalu people are importing much of their once healthy diet. They import highly processed, rich in protein foodstuffs from the Australian and Japanese mainlands. This has meant that for the first time the people of Tuvalu are suffering 21st Century diseases such as blocked arteries, diabetes and heart conditions.

Photographer Shuuichi Endou and his wife Yuko Endou shown here, are campaigning to raise awareness of the effects of climate changes on their way of life. Shuuichi has been methodically taking pictures of the Tuvalu people and has created an unusual picture album of 1,000 locals with messages for the outside world. Each person photographed is logged onto a database and a computer link up receives messages of support from around the world.

The project aims to create a better understanding throughout the world community that the crisis of climate change is no longer a projected problem of the future but a threat of immediate urgency.

Noatago, a 53 yr old fisherman asks the world, "Please stop the wasteful discharge of greenhouse gases. Please grant my simple dream."

Support the people of Tuvalu by logging on and sending a message of hope to Noatago and Shuuichi and the inhabitants of Tuvalu. You can see your link from around the world reaching their tiny islands online at http://www.10000.tv/

Danish Hospitality

2009-12-14T22:25:00.003Z

New Life Copenhagen have organised 4,000 of the 35,000 delegates to live with Danish families during our stay in Copenhagen. This is how I have met and enjoyed the company and friendly generosity of the Christiansen family who live near Mozarts Plads in the South of the city. They are a typical European family who have been very supportive and excited to have so many international guests on their doorstep. On Saturday they attended the Global Day of Action with a march and rally, along with an estimated 100,000 people from all over the world. They were energised to have so many people in their city and returned with wonderful pictures and stories. It was a peaceful rally and day and I think this family were typical of those who attended and wanted to have their own voices heard as part of the protest worldwide so that politicians might listen.

The day was however marred by the actions of Danish police, who in the words of one local person "were puffed up" and "ready for action". Indeed it now transpires that the police detained 968 people. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. All were handcuffed behind their backs, put on the cold ground in rows and made to wait for up to 8 hours without toilets, medical care, water or even being allowed to move. Many urinated on their clothes in the cold. After a traumatising wait, all but 13 were released without charge, and later only 3 detained for actual violent misconduct, proving that there was little reason for such cruelty. The Danish people I have met were all apologetic to visitors from overseas. It seems a local anarchist group called "Never Trust a Cop", were black clad young people throwing bottles and fireworks at the Foreign Ministry Buildings. Any peaceful marchers who just happened to be nearby were arrested with the group.

Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu however was at the front of the march and inspired the crowd before he handed a 500,000 signature petition to UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer. His simple message "Hello rich countries - wake up! It's cheap to finance climate debt. 150 billion dollars a year would do it". He also called for a 40 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2050.

My Danish family themselves are learning about, and making changes in their own lifestyles about climate change. They need strong leadership from all sectors of government and at this stage they cannot see how this can be done. One, much photographed banner from the day simply reads "There is No Planet B".

Nigerian women call for gender justice in new climate change deal

2009-12-14T19:07:00.003Z

This afternoon I heard from a Nigerian group, Centre for 21st issues (C21st), first hand about the effects of climate change on the Nigerian people, particularly women.

They are experiencing in some places drought and desertification, and in other areas problems with storms, flooding and landslides which destroy homes, communtiy buildings and roads. Girls are having to miss school to help with the increasingly onerous task of water collection, affecting their education and reducing their opportunities for the future. Disasters such as landslides are leading to ill health, increasing the care burden on women.

Again, they stressed that women are not helpless in the face of climate change, but are powerful agents to help communities adapt, and it is crucial that they are involved in decision making about climate change.

C21st have produced a position statement for COP15. It's unfortunately not available electronically, but calls for gender justice to be mainstreamed into the new climate change deal.

Global women's voices

2009-12-13T19:49:00.004Z

Since arriving in Copenhagen I’ve had chance to attend several events focussing on gender and climate change at Klimaforum, the alternative "people’s" summit which is going on in a huge leisure centre in the centre of the city. Though these events have not been held in the largest venues, they’ve been packed out (this morning there were people listening from outside the room, as we were in danger of breaching fire regulations), and attended by men as well as women.

Yesterday I attended a talk by US academic Michelle Garvey, who gave a feminist critique of the dominant climate change discourse in the US. She pointed out that this is based on an individualist and consumerist framework, and proposes solutions based on free market capitalism. She suggested that a challenge would be to develop an alternative paradigm based on feminist principles that is socially just and empowers those groups and elements of nature that are oppressed.

This morning was an event entitled “Climate Justice and Gender”. As well as giving an overview of the concept of climate justice, there was also a presentation of the gendered aspects of climate change in the transport sector by Merritt Polk who is based at the University of Gothenburg. She explained that, like in the UK, Swedish men tend to use cars more and travel further in them than women. Despite the sexist jokes, women are safer drivers than men, and are also more likely to favour policies that reduce the environmental impact and safety risks of driving, such as lowering speed limits. Merritt made a point that WEN has often made: rather than seeing women as vulnerable, we need to see them as agents of change, and as more sustainable role models.

This afternoon I had the pleasure of hearing from Anna Pinto, an Indian activist on climate change, development and gender issues. She lives in an area of north-east India which, as well as facing social and political challenges, is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, such as melting glaciers from the Himalayas and erratic monsoons. She explained that the local communities have already been dealing with climate change and this exacerbates the difficulties they are already facing. But she also made a very important point about how we perceive women who are being the worst affected by climate change. “If I tie your hands behind your back and ask you to make a cup of coffee, are you vulnerable?” she asked. There is an important distinction to be made between those who really are vulnerable, such as children, and those who are disabled by the actions of others. Women are not vulnerable to the effects of climate change because they are weak, but they face greater challenges from climate change because of their social roles and tendency to live in poverty.

Second Women and Gender intervention: adaptation funding

2009-12-13T19:45:00.001Z

Apologies for the late posting of this statement made by Sharmind Neelormi from Bangladesh on behalf of the Women and Gender constituency on Thursday:

I am Sharmind Neelormi from Bangladesh, one of the most vulnerable countries under climate change, speaking on behalf of GenderCC – Women for Climate Justice.

I am speaking on behalf of millions of poor women who are disproportionately impacted by the adverse effects of climate change and with a blurred future expecting a just climate negotiation. It’s the concerns of their survival; it’s the healthy reproductive future we are hoping for. As you would agree, Mr. Chairman, neither survival nor our reproductive future is negotiable.

Major financing for adaptation should be provided by Annex I countries, based on their historical responsibility and debt in connection with encroachment into the atmospheric space of all women and men, who lived, are living and will be living in all the developing countries.

Adaptation fund should be new and additional to ODA and humanitarian responses to disasters. A significant proportion of this fund should be earmarked to promote gender targeted and gender sensitive adaptation. There must be gender budgeting and proper monitoring as to ensuring gender sensitive spending.

Rather than GEF, we demand a body, similar to the Adaptation Fund Board (AFB) or an extension of it should be given the charge to administer the fund.

Recognizing that for adaptation alone we would require 100s of billions dollars per annum, we cannot accept a meager 10B dollars per annum as a starting point to initiate an adequate, predictable, automatically replenishable financial regime.

Dear Colleagues,

Let us create a negotiated regime where we do not require adapting much. When we need to manage the unavoidable through adaptation, we do it equitably, ensuring gender justice.

Thank You.

2009-12-12T20:50:00.001Z

Few governments understand the gender connection to climate change. Those that do understand tend to be either exceptionally aware of gender issues as a nation such as Finland and Iceland, or they are already suffering the consequences of climate change and its effect on women such as Bangladesh or Lesotho.

One woman who has stood out at the negotiations so far, and has successfully managed to draft a gender related statement for the shared vision document that now has the chance to be adopted by the whole delegation is Ingibjorg Davidsdottir. She is the Icelandic Director from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs with responsibility for Human Rights and Equality Issues.

She has proposed “the full integration of gender perspectives is essential to effective action on all aspects of climate change, including adaptation, mitigation, technology sharing, financing, and capacity building. The advancement of women,. Their leadership and meaningful participation, and their engagement as equal stakeholders in all climate related processes and implementation must be guaranteed.”

Next week Ingibjorg will accept a GenderCC award for her work highlighting gender and environmental issues to governments around the world. She is modest and charming and altogether realistic, “nothing is agreed until the whole statement is agreed”.

She is correct in this respect, for although gender is not the agenda in any huge or meaningful capacity, just agreeing a short paragraph which will be printed next week for the final statement was a huge concession and might bring more finance or programmes towards gender related adaptation and mitigation. It’s been a difficult situation, many people don’t want to speak of lifestyle changes or communication issues between cultures. The emphasis has been on complex fiscal initiatives for alternative energy or carbon tracking and in some cases that also means promoting nuclear technology which on the whole women reject as a solution.

The UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has already clearly articulated the important role of women in addressing climate change. Gender CC say that any agreements and statements should ensure compliance with existing women’s rights standards and best practises as enshrined in CEDAW, MDGs and Security Council Resolution 1325.

World's largest climate change protest

2009-12-12T18:48:00.003Z

This afternoon I joined what has been billed as the world's largest climate change protest, as an estimated 100,000 people marched from the Danish Parliament to the Bella Center, when the UN conference is being held, to demand a new and fair global climate change deal.

Like the march in London last week, the event had a colourful carnival atmosphere, and was an inspiring display of disparate groups coming together with a common message.

The day was only marred by intimidating groups of police in full riot gear walking among people who were marching peacefully, and the arrest of some innocent bystanders (including someone in the group I was walking with, who was waiting outside a cafe while his friend went to the toilet inside).

I know many people who have travelled to Copenhagen on long journies by bus or train from across the continent just to be part of today's march. This kind of passion and commitment is a demonstration of how important ordinary people know it is that there is real action to tackle climate change. The questions is now, with just a week of the negotiations to go, whether our political leaders have the same determination.

Image: Greenpeace/Kristian Buus (Creative Commons)

Action on Tar Sands

2009-12-11T17:12:00.003Z

I have had close connections with Canada all my life, first through familial links; later as a student and translator of French in Quebec City, the enchanting capital of the country's largest province, where I met my partner, a Quebecois; and afew years ago, as a media officer at the country's High Commission in the UK.

Canada is an amazing and beautiful country of wide open spaces, with rich indigenous heritage, an important history of feminism, and clean, multicultural cities. It was the birthplace of Greenpeace, and is home to the pre-eminent west-coast scientist and environmentalist David Suzuki.

But for a country with such natural beauty and progressive movements, its environmental credentials have been cut to shreds thanks to its government's disdain for the Kyoto Protocol and to its cultivation of the highly-polluting oil sands, aka tar sands, industry in the province of Alberta, now Canada's richest province - a northern Dallas.

The tar sands consist of a mixture of silica sand, minerals, clay, water, and most importantly, crude bitumen, converted into what is described as the dirtiest energy source ever conceived.

Dr. Suzuki likens the massive and mushrooming open-cast mining operations in his country to a 'horror movie' that has wrought ecological devastation, with the landscape scarred by hundreds of square kilometres of toxic waste pools and mines hundreds of feet deep; the razing of forests; soaring greenhouse gas emissions; and reports of high rates of cancer in the surrounding area.

Canada's First Nations communities, whose health and lands have been heavily polluted as a result of the industry, are raising the issue at Copenhagen. Eriel Tchekwie Deranger, a First Nations activist from Northern Alberta, points out that British taxpayers are helping to fund the pollution through majority ownership of Royal Bank of Scotland, which she says, in the past year, has underwritten more than £1.6bn in debt for companies operating in the tar sands.

Lobbying against tar sands is currently taking place at Copenhagen and the UK. The UK Tar Sands Network, which includes New Internationalist magazine and People & Planet, will stage a protest in Trafalgar Square, outside the Canadian High Commission on Monday, December 14.

Overland to Copenhagen

2009-12-10T10:04:00.003Z

Later today I'll be setting off for Copenhagen by train. I'm going to Copenhagen to represent WEN at the climate change negotiations which is both a huge privelege and a responsibility. But I'm also excited about getting there: I love overland travel, and as this journey includes short stops in two great European cities, Brussels and Cologne, I'm pretty excited.

I'm also pretty happy that, although my journey won't be carbon-free, it will be a lot lower carbon that if I was flying: according to Transport Direct, the emissions from my journey will be 55.3kg CO2, compared to 164kg by plane. This doesn't take into account the increased warming effect of emissions released at altitude, which, based on the UK government's figures, would mean that the warming effect of my journey had I travelled by plane was actually the equivalent of 410kg CO2. Given that a roughly sustainable level of CO2 emissions is around 1000kg per person each year, the flight would have accounted for almost half my emissions for the year. By the time I'd come back by plane, I'd have pretty much blown my entire year's carbon budget (if there were such a thing).

Unfortunately, at the moment, because when we choose to fly we're not paying the true cost of our journey, we contine to use this carbon-intensive form of transport, even for relatively short domestic journies. Although this isn't something that will be sorted out at Copenhagen, it shows that there's still a long way to go on real action to tackle climate change.

Until recently, there were plans for big expansion at airports across the UK. Yet this week has seen a report from the Committee on Climate Change that seems to finally accept that the growth of the aviation industry needs to be curbed. It might not say all the right things (it doesn't rule out Heathrow's third runway, for example), but is a step in the right direction. As Leo Murray points out, unless we want to make bigger cuts elsewhere (perhaps we could stop eating, or turn the heating off?) in order to carry on our love affair with flying, it's time to face that avitation has got to give.

Figures from the Department for Transport show that women are much more likely to support limits to airport expansion on environmental grounds. So perhaps we need some more women involved in decision making about aviation policy? Of the nine individuals on the Committee on Climate Change, only one, Professor Julia King, is female. The Transport Select Committee, which also published a (rather less positive) report on aviation this week, has only two women among the eleven members of its committee. There's clearly a long way to go...

Women and gender constiuency statement

2009-12-09T23:49:00.002Z

Earlier this year, gender and climate change campaigners secured recognition of a Women and Gender constituency by the UNFCCC secretariat. This was a great step in recognising the importance of gender issues in the climate change debate, and allows some practical advantages at the negotiations, including the possibility of making interventions in the proceedings.

Today Andrea Guzman of Bolivia made the following statement on behalf of GenderCC – Women for Climate Justice

Chair, thank you for giving us the opportunity to address the floor on such a historical occasion. My name is Andrea Guzman and I am speaking on behalf of GenderCC and the Women and Gender Constituency.

I come from the Altiplano region in Bolivia, 3,500 meter above sea level, where I work with peasant women’s groups who tend their land, care for their cattle and do handcrafts work. These women are already facing climate change problems and are coping with them. For instance: the need to fight exotic plants which are invading the area due to climate change and are harming the people, their crops and their animals. While women have to find solutions for such problems, it is disappointing to know that the countries most responsible for the climate crisis are still seeking new mechanisms to avoid real action to cut their emissions.

At this stage, it is not only important but it is absolutely necessary to recognize the central role that women play in addressing climate change and therefore include their knowledge, expertise and wisdom as intrinsic requisites for any adaptation, mitigation, technology sharing, and capacity building activities.

As the name states, a shared vision should be shared by 100 per cent of the world population! Not only by 10 or 50 per cent. If we want to have a truly shared vision, we cannot leave out half of the world’s population: women and their vision. Therefore, we call for the Shared Vision to include that:

The full integration of gender perspectives is essential to effective action on all aspects of climate change, including adaptation, mitigation, technology sharing, financing, and capacity building. The advancement of women, their leadership and meaningful participation, and their engagement as equal stakeholders in all climate related processes and implementation must be guaranteed.

Chair, distinguished delegates, without mentioning women and gender, the Shared Vision would be weak and critically flawed.
We demand climate justice.
Climate justice means: respect for Mother Earth;
Climate justice means gender justice.

Thank you.

Danish Government Goes Subversive Shopping

2009-12-09T16:57:00.003Z

A little reported fact about the CO15 Copenhagen Summit is the wonderfully subversive and liberating decision for the Danish Government hosts not to issue the usual freebies at this kind of event.

The target was to be perfect hosts and yet not give in to the relentless "gifts" from companies and sponsors to the target group. The budgeted $700,000 dollars, 4 million Danish kroner will be spent instead on climate related scholarships allowing about a dozen students from around the world carry out 2 year climate related masters programmes at Danish universities.

"Although there is no doubt as to the good intentions behind giving gifts, we have often experienced how conference kits end up in garbage bins at conference venues and hotels. We want to break the habit in Copenhagen and spend the money in a constructive way" said Ulla Tornaes, Minister for Development Co-operation.

In much the same fashion, New Life Copenhagen became the new and complimentary "Green Hotel" for conference partipants. Visitors from all over the world were invited to register and were connected with a "host" family, representing liberal and generous Danish families in Copenhagen itself. Nearly 4,000 international visitors will be hosted in this way. Most countries would be more keen to build new hotels, or exploit tourism somehow. There are also many schools and colleges who have offered space at the cost of £35 for three nights (albeit on your own sleeping bag on the floor) with breakfast. I myself registered with a family and I'm looking forward to the extra cultural experience and insight offered in accepting such gracious hospitality from our host nations citizens.

In the last few days the Danish government have been under scrutiny for the "secret" plan B they have been drafting with the US and Britain among others if it doesn't go well. Avaaz, an organisation commited to mobilising support using new technology for real leadership from the worlds representatives are running a telephone your leader campaign.

They say: "The Copenhagen climate summit is on the verge of collapse already -- developed countries have failed to lead the way with sufficient cuts and real money to finance a deal, and trust was lost when a flawed draft by the Danish hosts leaked.

European nations have led the way on climate before. But so far in Copenhagen, we have failed to do our job. In these last short days, Europe’s leaders must rise to the moment and become true dealmakers.

Our leaders are meeting in Brussels this Thursday and Friday to decide how far they’ll go for a real deal in Copenhagen. Let’s flood them with thousands of phone calls from their own citizens, pressing them to rescue the summit by offering fairer and more ambitious proposals, instead of standing by and watching our future fall apart.
Click here to take action now:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/europe_be_a_leader

After years of negotiation and discussion, we should not fail in the last days for a simple lack of leadership. So even if you're not going to Copenhagen on the train, you can send a text or write an email to let your leader know what you think.

Climate changes and women

2009-12-08T15:52:00.001Z

Climate changes are real, and the global emergency it has created is already happening around us. Floods in Cumbria from the hardest rainfall ever recorded are but a small example of the extreme and extraordinary weather conditions that threaten people’s homes and livelihoods around the world. Women’s Environmental Network have calculated that already of the 26 million people worldwide who have lost their homes, attributed directly to climate change, 20 million of them are women.

Statistically, whenever environmental disaster strikes, women and their children are hit hardest, and first. They are more likely to die in climate related disasters and more likely to suffer in increased workload, loss of income and worsening health and violence after each emergency. 70% of the worlds poor are women and that means directly and specifically they suffer, and die first.

In Europe during the 2003 heatwave more than 70% of those who died were women, in part to socio-economic hardships, women living longer and many women over 60 having less ability to regulate their internal body temperature.

Global and national strategies that fail to support women are at the root of environmental inequalities. Just as they are the root of problems of poverty, health and land injustices. These problems will never be solved with a political strategy that misses this crucial point.

But the conversation is being held by women’s, developmental and social agencies at the moment, rather than the necessary environmental strategists, financiers and politicians, and often a woman’s perspective is missing. At one crucial summit just 7% of the negotiators were women.

That’s why the eco-feminist lobby continues to say again and again that financing women out of poverty and giving them access to healthcare including their rights to control their own fertility is crucial to create equality and environmental justice.

United Nations Association Meeting

2009-12-06T22:49:00.003Z

At the WAC UNA UK meeting last Thursday I set out my case for specific and measurable gender specific policies to be part of any climate change deal. WEN has been accredited as COP15 participants on behalf of GenderCC and three of us will be blogging from the conference with details of value.

We aim to have a say in the talks and collect research data for WENs forthcoming campaign in February on climate and women. We also hope to highlight the lack of women representatives statistically, and the woeful lack of gender consciousness in the negotiations in all other than the UN itself and gender and development groups. One previous study has found only 7% of the environmental negotiators has been women. At the same time we shall be collecting data and interviewing those women and organisations responsible for some of the most positive actions in support of women and environment in these turbulant times.

Thousands march for climate justice

2009-12-06T13:31:00.007Z

Yesterday saw over 50,000 people from across the country flowing through the streets of the capital as part of the biggest climate change march the UK has ever seen, while thousands more in Scotland joined a sister march in Glasgow. Women from WEN were part of the march in London to join calls for the UK Government to take urgent and effective action to tackle climate change.

Tomorrow, the UN Climate Change Conference begins in Copenhagen, with negotiators from around the world gathering to try and come to an agreement on targets to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions from 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol targets which were agreed in 1997 expire. Substantial progress needs to be made this year if the new targets are to be in place in time to have a chance of preventing the worst effects of climate change. Since 1997, awareness of how climate change as an issue of social justice has increased dramatically. But too few people are aware of the way in which climate change is a gender issue.

Because of women's social roles, and their increased likelihood of living in poverty, both in the UK and around the world, climate change will affect women differently. Yet women remain under-represented in national and international decision-making about climate change.

WEN will be in Copenhagen, joining groups from around the world in calling for a fair and effective deal to tackle climate change, and working with women's organisations to put gender on the climate change agenda. Watch this space!

Image: hmcotterill, Creative Commons

A Fitting Symbol

2009-12-01T20:55:00.009Z

The Little Mermaid statue in the Langelinie harbour in Copenhagen has taken on a new meaning to us in the run up to the UN Climate Change Conference, taking place in just one weeks time. Small, fragile, yet resolute, she gazes out across the icy water and industrial buildings, and quietly waits. We get the feeling she has been waiting for a long time, as long perhaps, as the sea itself is old. Many thousands of people are gathering in Copenhagen to lend a discerning ear to the negotiations; many millions more will be tuning in to the proceedings via internet and global news services. With all this human attention, the Little Mermaid serves as a reminder that the cost of climate change cowardice is measured in far more than economic terms. Part woman, part sea creature, she bridges the imaginary gap between humans and the rest of the natural world. Her silent form represents the hidden voices in the climate change debate. As an ambassador of nature, and of women, she is an eerily strong and fitting symbol of why WEN is at Copenhagen this month, campaigning for women's voices to be heard in climate change decison-making.
We invite you to follow our progress via blog, Facebook and Twitter.