Where are the women? Representation at COP28 plummeted 15pc from COP26

Women's representation at last year’s 28th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP 28) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, dropped despite the relentless lobbying by women activists.

A report by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change on the conference reveals that women constituted 34 per cent of the delegates compared to the near-equal 49 per cent who attended pre-COP26 virtual  UN Climate Change subsidiary bodies sessions held from May 31 to June 17, 2021. But in the actual COP26 talks held in November the same year, the representation dropped to 37 per cent.

Seemingly following the pattern of exclusion, recently, the organising committee for the COP29 to be held Azerbaijan, appointed only men to the 28-member committee.

But after a backlash from the women climate activists, President Ilham Aliyev added 12 women and an extra man to the committee, making it 29 versus 12, just a 29 per cent representation of women in the committee.

Since 1995 when the first COP was held, women have pushed for equal inclusion in the climate talks where decisions are made, and the women are expected to implement them.

In 2022, a year before the Dubai conference, women said they were tired of being pedestrians in the talks.

But it seems, their call went unheeded. 

“One of the biggest challenges that women are facing is exclusion from conversations on climate change,”  Stella Agara, economic justice and climate action lead at Akina Mama wa Africa, a Pan-African women's rights organisation, had said during a January 27, 2022 webinar.

The webinar, Climate change: Addressing the Climate Challenge with a Gender Lens had been convened by Women Win and New Faces, New Voices-Kenya.

“It is the men who get invited by the local chief to contribute to a (policy) paper. (This paper) is then submitted to COP (UN Climate Change Conference of Parties) by men by virtue of the fact they are the majority leaders,” she said.

Solutions

She added: “It is men who sit to make decisions on climate solutions. They then expect the women to implement those solutions. The question is ‘where are the women in those conversations?’”

Nevertheless, women fight on.

“Participation in climate and environmental decision-making is a human right, and equal participation of people of all genders generates outcomes that are more effective and sustainable,” said Tara Daniel, senior program manager, Women's Environment & Development Organisation.

Mary Robinson, Chair of The Elders, reminded the world that: “We simply cannot advance if half of the world’s population is not represented. Gender diversity, racial diversity, and a diversity of ages are all prerequisites for true climate justice, and urgent, sustained action is needed to advance this agenda – at all international negotiations.”

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