Martha Chouchena Rojas, CARE International's Global Advocacy Head is at the COP 17 Climate Conference in Durban, South Africa. © CAREMartha Chouchena-Rojas – CARE International, Head, Global Advocacy
Our CARE delegation arrived to Durban in a climate of uncertainty and varying expectations on what the conference will deliver, especially with regard to the critically urgent issues before the negotiators–to agree on a second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol, a framework for a long-term, legally binding climate change regime, and appropriate financial resources, especially for adaptation.
The climate outside the walls of the conference center is also grey and colder than expected, as negotiators start to fill the rooms for two weeks of highly political and technical negotiations. So is it relevant to address gender equality in this context?
How far the Durban talks seem to be from the millions of poor people who, in many parts of the world, are hit first and hardest by the impacts of a changing climate. We are seeing just now severe droughts in the Horn of Africa and devastating floods in South East Asia. And we know that women are disproportionally affected as they make up the majority of the people leaving in poverty and depend on climate-sensitive activities. I cannot help but think about so many women and their hungry children walking for days to escape from increasingly frequent droughts, here, in Africa. What will happen to them if emissions are not drastically cut and the climate becomes warmer? How will they live if they don’t have the resources to adapt to these changes?
But women are not only vulnerable. They often have the primary responsibility for collecting water and firewood, and they produce 60 to 80 percent of the world’s food in most developing countries. They also have the knowledge and skills to find solutions, including here in Durban. So, yes, gender considerations need to be at the heart of the COP17 talks.
There has been considerable progress in the last two years in getting gender equality in the UNFCCC negotiations, as reflected in different aspects of the Cancun Agreements. There is still work to be done here in Durban to ensure that national adaptation is gender sensitive, that women participate in the various bodies established under the Convention, and that they have access to appropriate technologies and funding.
But thinking about gender is not only about getting wording in the texts being negotiated in Durban in these important areas. It is also getting the fair, ambitious and legally binding deal needed to take poor people–and especially women–out of the current path of increasing vulnerability and poverty, so that they can have a more equitable, sustainable and secure future.
