Peter Sammonds writes about the GRRIPP team's experience at COP28 at the first ever Gender and Climate Day.
GRRIPP team at COP28: Dr Zahra Khan (GRRIPP Research and Outreach), Ella Bedford (BSc Theoretical Physics), Miriam Zallocco (BSc Global Humanitarian Studies), Peter Sammonds. We were part of the WOMENVAI delegation as Observers to COP28.
The first ever Gender and Climate Day was held at COP28 on Monday 4/12/23 and joined by a UCL IRDR GRRIPP team. But why is this important?
Women and men experience disasters differently. Women will disproportionately be impacted by climate change for instance from extreme heat. That is women working in the fields, factories and the informal economy. Pregnant women will be particularly affected. These were points made by Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton who was moderating an event on “Women Building a Climate-Resilient World”. This was a centre-piece panel discussion covering the transition to the blue/green economy, climate finance, women in STEM and gender-based violence (GBV). As she commented, it was remarkably to have an audience of hundreds discussing gender - and not just women! And she was great. In the transition to a green economy 50% of the population are being left behind and so it is essential to keep a gender lens. Food production and preparation is disproportionately done by women but women have little impact on food decisions and only own 15% of the land. 70% of jobs in the emerging green energy sectors are taken by men. Only 10% of women have the skills for the future green economy. There is a massive digital skills gap and unequal access to technology. Only 0.01% of climate finance funding goes to women. But investing in women is investing in our common future. The starting point for action has to be understanding where we are and what are the issues. As the Head of UN Women argued as a start that means sex and gender responsive data needs to be collected. But the data needs to influence gender finance policies and that is not happening. Representatives from Amazon and Microsoft argued for removing barriers in STEM, and building enterprise incubators and accelerators for women who are more likely to innovate climate solutions.
The Gender and Climate Day started with a “Technical Dialogue on Financing for gender-responsive just transitions and climate action”. A key point of discussion was that women (and some men) in the Care Economy will be left out as industrial sectors transition because only the Production Economy is considered. This was a line of argument which was new to me and I found revealing. We can see this for ourselves in the UK with oil workers in Aberdeen being offered investment and training - but the Care Economy is excluded. And without gender justice there will be no social justice or climate justice. The intersections with Indigenous women, women of African descent and women with disabilities were discussed. There needs to be a framework to support integration of gender and poverty issues in climate finance. There needs to be capacity building. There needs to be integrated investment plans. National viewpoints were presented by Colombia and Zimbabwe. Colombia argued for generating baseline data and prioritisation for women impacted in the transition to the green economy (e.g. re-qualification) and backed by specific actions of government, including changing the law, action on participation in management and action on GBV in employment. Zimbabwe argued that for a gender responsive just transition it is necessary to look beyond just mitigation and the COP negotiations had to move on to become broader. There needs to be funding for implementation of the UNFCCC Gender Action Plan (GAP) initiated at the Lima COP. Some countries are not even able to develop their own national GAPs because of lack of financing. But as Colombia pointed out legal frameworks can be changed if there is a will so I agree that action cannot hold back just because of a lack of resources.
The Gender and Climate Day concluded with a ministerial panel discussion session on “High Level Dialogue on Gender-Responsive Just Transitions and Climate Action Partnership”. This was attended by Rt Hon Andrew Mitchell MP, International Development Minister in the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). He committed to investment to advance gender equality as we are at a critical juncture and that no one should be left behind. He said that the UK is endorsing a gender responsive just transition and there will be GBP 40 million to support a just transition. The new UK government white paper (published 20/11/23) sets out its approach to tackling world hunger, making the international system fairer and progress towards the UN sustainable global goals. The UK has also announced GBP 1.5 billion climate finance. There will be focussed efforts on women and girls and there will be direct support to women’s rights organisations. There were similar supportive comments from the Rwandan Environment Minister and Dutch Finance Minster for instance, with all ministers agreeing with the Partnership. But all agreed that implementation is the big issue with climate finance just not getting to women. Actually I was surprised there was such an explicit commitment to gender equality from the UK government. So COP is more than just a talking shop.
Finally, the COP Parties are negotiating an updated Gender and Climate Change decision requiring a strengthening of national commitments. The UNFCCC Gender Action Plan is under review with final agreement due in July 2024. So there is still an opportunity to make inputs. And yes, in my mind there can be no climate justice without gender justice so it is not an issue that can be separated out. Having a Gender and Climate Change Day at COP is a recognition of this.
COP28 EVENT:
COP28 WOMENVAI and GRRIPP panel discussion on “Opportunity over urgency: why we need a new narrative for climate action” at 6.30pm (Dubai time) on Wednesday 6 December 2023 in Blue Zone B6 Building 78 Side Event Room 2. Streamed online: QR code.
Notes
COP28 is the 28th annual UN climate meeting held in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from 30 November to 12 December 2023.
COP (Conference of the Parties) is the supreme decision-making body of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which has met every year since its first meeting in Berlin in 1995. The COP Presidency rotates around the 5 recognised UN regions. UNFCCC established an international treaty to combat “dangerous interference with the climate system”.
The Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty on climate change adopted by 198 Parties (signatory states) to hold “the increase in global average temperatures to well below 2 deg C above pre-industrial levels” and pursue efforts to limit the increase to 1.5 deg C. COP also serves as the Meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement.
To limit global warming to 1.5 deg C, greenhouse gas emissions must peak before 2025 and decline 43 per cent by 2030. (See unfccc.int )
WOMENVAI is an NGO with special consultative status to the UN. WOMENVAI stands for Women and Men in Environment and AI, raising the voice for girls and women around the world, supporting women in STEM and developing new technologies. WOMENVAI and GRRIPP have collaborated on several student-led projects and workshops at UCL. (See www.womenvai.org )
GRRIPP Gender Responsive Resilience and Intersectionality in Policy and Practice is a UKRI Network+ which connects networks of disciplines and sectors to promote new ways to think about gender and resilience. It is led by the UCL IRDR (Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction) Centre for Gender and Disaster. (See www.grripp.net )
STEM is science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
UKRI UK Research and Innovation is a public bodies that funds UK research.
UCL also has a team of 20 attending COP28 (www.ucl.ac.uk/climate-change )
Peter Sammonds, Professor of Geophysics, UCL Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction, and GRRIP Gender and Intersectionality Ambassador (p.sammonds@ucl.ac.uk)
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