Statement of GenderCC-Women for Climate Justice
There are reasons to be happy in the recent past. Women have been recognised by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) as stakeholders, with the creation of a Women and Gender Constituency. We have seen more and more national governments that are pursuing a gender language into the texts that would eventually form the outcome document of COP 15. We have seen them become more understanding of the linkages between women and climate change.
However, there is still no assurance that our bottom line will be met: the articulation of women as stakeholders in the UNFCCC process and as stakeholders in addressing the climate crisis at the very heart of the outcome document.
Noting the continuing reluctance of developed nations to accept their historical responsibilities by significantly reducing their emissions and paying their ecological debt as well as the violent crackdown of last Saturday’s peaceful mobilisation, this development at the Bella Centre signals the death of democracy in a process that would determine the future of the only planet where we live and struggle as we relate with our own species and the environment, shape communities and societies, nurture and negotiate with our identities.
Admittedly, the integration of gender into the outcome document is just the tip of our struggle. To begin with, much remains to be desired in the process and its framework that has allowed the environment and the climate to be traded as commodities. But as people are gagged and the gates of the Bella Centre remain close, this process will only aggravate the very inequalities and inequities that have led us to this climate crisis.
Despite its flaws, we believe that the Kyoto Protocol must be kept. We affirm that developed countries must pay for climate change with their public money. We call for democracy in this process.
Women are part of the people. Let the people decide. Open the Bella Centre.
*For more information, please contact Nina Somera, nina[AT]isiswomen[DOT]org
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