Global climate talks have gotten underway in Egypt, after another lost year on global climate action.
But now entering their fourth day, the lack of women involved in the COP27 discussions, and therefore global negotiations on climate change, is clear. Once again.
The most apparent figure highlighting the male domination came from the breakdown of speakers from the first two days, as the New York Times shared. Of 111 people to speak, just seven of them were female.
These speakers were the prime ministers, presidents and princes of the world. So yes, of course, this is already a space where women are far unnumbered by men, and so this was to be expected. But even outside these leaders, the gender imbalance continues, with 63 per cent of all party delegates being men.
It’s an imbalance again that demonstrates how men dominate these negotiations, despite the threat multiplying impacts of climate change on women and girls, and the globe’s most vulnerable. UN research finds that 80 percent of those displaced by climate change are women.
And it’s an imbalance that comes after more lost time and action on climate change, and after plenty of examples in the past where doing the same thing has yielded the same failed results and watered-down ambitions.
As climate scientist David Ho tweeted on the speaker lineup and one of the key photos to come out of the early stages of the talks: “At this point, maybe we should ask women for help.”
Away from global negotiations, women are making excellent progress on climate action. Young women have been leading on activism. They’re leading across global Indigenous communities. When given access and opportunity, women transform communities after disasters, leading in recovery efforts. Research highlights the stronger ties women have back into local communities, and how they can tap into networks to better distribute and access knowledge. Women are increasingly making up large portions of various constitutional bodies and committees on climate deliberations, like the Adaptation Committee, which is now at 68 per cent women’s membership. As Scientific American writes this week, “women are leading the climate revolution…” So please, “Give more women the microphone at COP27.”
The goal of these current talks, as it has been in the past, is for all 197 country signatories of the UN climate change convention to reach an agreement on the next steps the world will take to deal with climate change.
It’s been seven years since the 2015 Paris agreement was reached, a pivotal moment in climate negotiations. It shouldn’t go unnoticed that a woman was largely responsible for leading the negotiations and supporting the world to come to that consensus. Christiana Figueres took on the role of executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 2010, following the failed 2009 talks in Copenhagen. Figueres brought collaboration, optimism and determination to the process, and continued this up until finishing up in the role in 2016. As she told Women’s Agenda, back in 2020: “Optimism is the gritty determination that we have to win this challenge. There is no other option we can consider.”
Much has changed since the Paris Agreement came together. We’ve seen a Trump presidency, a global pandemic, a war in Europe with a spillover energy crisis, and many, many climate-related disasters. We are still far from averting the tipping point ahead on global warming that will see us spill into a new era of unstoppable global warming. An era in just Australia of more frequent and more severe weather-related disasters.
The urgency is clear and being experienced globally. Yet leaders have arrived in Egypt for much of the same negotiating tactics as in previous years. This time, given the energy crisis and conflict in Europe, there are even more reasons than ever to delay progress.
So far, some of the most powerful speeches so far in Egypt have come from women, including Mia Mottley, the Prime Minister of Barbados, who used the platform to talk about the 1 billion refugees the world will have by 2050.
“I don’t need to repeat the horror and the devastation wrecked upon this Earth over the course of the last 12 months since we met in Glasgow,” she said.
“Whether the apocalyptic floods in Pakistan or the heat waves from Europe to China, or indeed in the last few days in my own region, the devastation caused in Belize by tropical storm Lisa, or the torrential floods a few days ago in St Lucia.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also offered a powerful call to action, sharing how those in the “developing world must be supported in adapting to a harsher climate.” She urged those in the “global north” to stand by their climate finance commitments to those in the global south – suggesting they can follow the European Commission’s lead.
Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin declared this as the “critical decade”. She said, “climate change is the biggest global security challenge we face” and noted Finland’s own ambition to become climate neutral by 2035. She also addressed the war in Ukraine and the threat of Russia on Finland’s own border, and highlighted Russia’s aggression in causing a global food and energy crisis.
“A green energy transition away from fossil fuels is not only an answer to climate change, but also to energy security. We must make sure this transition happens in a just way, creating new jobs and better opportunities for people everywhere,” she said.
Away from world leaders sharing their keynote speeches in those first couple of days, voices of women and girls are being heard in other ways.
There is the African Feminist Task Force, which has issued demands for climate justice – including specific provisions on the needs of women and girls, which includes an immediate half on all new fossil fuel investments, as well as a transition to sustainable practices with a gender-sensitive focus on using renewable energies. They also highlight the need for a gender action plan, accessible finance, as well as land rights and an expansion of women’s control and access to land.
There have also been plenty of calls to position women and girls at the centre of climate-related decision-making, including from Simon Stiell, the United National Climate Convention Executive Secretary, who said “as the world pivots to implementation, women and girls have to be placed at the entre of the climate decision-making and actions.” He said empowering women and girls will lead to better government and better outcomes.
“And we need that,” he said.
We absolutely do. Calling for it. Hoping for it. Waiting for it. None of it is enough.