News

Women’s Voices Raised at Climate Change Talks

Date: 15 April 2009

United Nations, New York — UNIFEM participated actively in the efforts of the Global Gender Climate Alliance at the climate talks in Bonn from 29 March to 8 April, organized by the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The Alliance emphasized the gender dimensions of global warming and the need for women’s equal participation in decision-making processes on climate change.

The inter-governmental meeting in Bonn was one in a series of multilateral talks on a new climate change framework to follow the Kyoto Protocol, committing industrialized countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A final agreement is expected in Copenhagen in December 2009, allowing time for ratification before the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

In its statement at the Bonn meeting, UNIFEM stressed that international climate policy affects the lives and livelihoods of individuals, and must therefore be based on social considerations, as well as scientific, technical and economic considerations. To inform this social analysis, more data is needed, disaggregated by sex and other factors, to ensure that policies respond to the different needs of men and women on the ground.

Efforts to raise women’s voices on climate change are seeing results. Multiple Parties to the Kyoto Protocol/Climate Convention made interventions on gender in the Bonn session: the Czech Republic on behalf of the European Union; Lesotho on behalf of Least Developed Countries; Guatemala on behalf of the Central American countries; as well as Bangladesh, Gambia, Iceland, Japan, Norway and Uganda. This is a substantial increase since the Conference of Parties in Poland in December 2008, where only Iceland made an intervention on the importance of gender considerations.

UNIFEM will continue working with multiple stakeholders to advance balanced gender participation in climate change decision-making processes and at negotiation sessions related to climate change, especially leading up to the Conference of Parties (COP-15) in Copenhagen at the end of this year.

For more information, please contact Ms. Tracy Raczek, tracy.raczek[at]unifem.org, +1 212 906-6897.