Women’s rights advocates are disappointed that this year’s COP 20 climate talks in Peru failed to make substantial progress towards a global climate agreement.
“Governments should be immediately implementing a renewable and safe energy transformation, protecting threatened ecosystems, and ensuring that the rights of the most vulnerable and impacted communities, including women, children and indigenous peoples and ecosystems are respected and protected,” said Bridget Burns from the Women’s Environment and Development Organization. “Here at COP 20 in Lima, in spite of working almost 2 days overtime, they did not come close to reaching this goal.”
There were some successes, however.
Negotiators agreed to the ‘Lima Work Programme on Gender‘ which aims to promote gender sensitivity in developing and implementing climate policy. It establishes a two-year plan that includes a review of gender mandate implementation, training on gender-responsive climate policy, guidelines for implementing gender considerations in climate change activities, and the appointment of a gender focal point within the UNFCCC Secretariat.
Representatives from several countries, including Mexico, Bolivia, the Dominican Republic, Philippines, Thailand and Ghana, also championed the inclusion of women’s and human rights in various parts of the Lima and Paris texts. As a result, the draft of the Paris agreement contains language on gender in the preamble, and in relation to adaptation, finance and capacity building.
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Visit the Women’s Environment and Development Organization’s website.
Women at COP 20 Blast Failure for Real Action in Lima, Women Gender Constituency, December 14, 2014.
Opinion: Climate Change and Inequalities: How will they impact women? By Susan McDade, Inter Press Service, December 12, 2014.