“The world as designed by men has destroyed many things,” said the climate activist, Angelica Ponce during COP26, as leaders and campaigners warned that climate change could not be ended without the empowerment of women.
A UN report found 80% of those displaced by the climate emergency are women, as they are on average poorer, less educated and more dependent on subsistence farming.
However, women present just a minority among delegates in environment summits and climate change articles’ writers.
According to statistic from an Oxfam report, women have held just 28% of the share of voice in news articles about climate change.
The report found that gender inequalities existed not only in terms of the percentage of news written by women, but the number of times women experts and politicians were quoted.
The first minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon said during the UN climate summit, “when world leaders gathered here last week, of the 120 or so, a tiny minority were women – that needs to change and it needs to change quickly.
There is no doubt, we must ensure that climate change is a feminist issue.”
The focus on gender equality on Tuesday during the COP26 organized in Glasgow saw indigenous women and politicians including Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, and Per Olsson Fridh, Sweden’s minister for international development cooperation, demand increased investment.
Climate-related events will prevent at least 4 million girls in lower-income countries from completing their education in 2021, he said, citing a Malala Fund report. On current trends, the climate crisis will contribute to at least 12.5 million girls not completing their education each year, the report said.
Per Olsson Fridh, Sweden’s minister for international development cooperation, told Cop26, “Women are not the polluters of this world, yet, they carry the consequences of climate change on their shoulders. Without a gender perspective, we miss out on invaluable knowledge needed for a sustainable green transition. A feminist approach is simply the only smart thing to do.”
According to UN Women, Only 3% of the climate overseas development aid actually targets women’s rights and gender equality specifically.
Some countries announced the climate projects they funded would have to incorporate gender equality.
Canada’s climate finance pledge to C$5.3bn (£3.1bn) over five years, Canada will apply the target of 80% for projects that will target gender equality outcomes.
Germany also announced that gender justice was to become a “guiding principle” for its €4.5bn (£3.8bn) International Climate Initiative.
“The world should begin thinking like women. If it was designed by a woman, it would end violence against women and children,” said Angelica Ponce, executive director of the Plurinational Authority for Mother Earth in Bolivia.
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