It is a revealing shot: November 12, the day after the inauguration of the 29th.my Conference of the Climate Parties (COP29), the heads of State and Government pose for the traditional family photo. In their ranks there are only 8 women out of 78 leaders. In 2023, at COP28 in Dubai, the latter represented only 19% of heads of delegation and 34% of national delegations, the same figure as ten years ago. An underrepresentation when women are the main victims of climate change, but also possessors of effective solutions to combat global warming.
To better integrate women into climate policies, States must achieve, at COP29, the adoption of a new work program on gender equality. But in recent days, the negotiations have been disrupted by the offensive of a coalition of countries leading “a certain number of withdrawals, desires to go back, flashbacks”according to Agnès Pannier-Runacher, French Minister of Ecological Transition, on Wednesday, November 20.
Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, Egypt and the Vatican have opposed various references to this issue. In the last draft of the negotiating text, which could be adopted as is by the countries, they managed to eliminate the mention of “women in all their diversity”as well as “intersectionality”that is, the recognition that gender interacts with other elements of identity such as origin to aggravate discrimination. References to human rights, the fight against violence against women and human rights activists have also disappeared.
“These countries want to see a simple distinction between men and women, boys and girls”laments Mwanahamisi Singano, from the NGO Women’s Organization for Environment and Development. The reason, according to different sources, is the fear that these expressions include transgender women.
“A minimum acceptable basis”
More generally, some conservative countries wanted “that many paragraphs that include the term “gender” be put in square brackets, that is, renegotiatedspecifies Anne Barre, from the NGO network Women Engage for a Common Future. They oppose this broad concept, both because it includes non-binary people and, above all, because these countries refuse to integrate equality between women and men in their climate policies, which would force them to change patriarchal structures. »
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