Why is it so important to talk about women when we talk about climate change? Why we need climate policies that acknoledge women rights and gender equality? Women are the ones that are taking the lead on the front lines, and Paris was a great example of this..

1. Women's Leadership for
Climate Action inView of the
Gathering and the Paris
Climate Summit
Seeds of Power: Women's Gathering in Bolivia,
International Women's Convocation's Webinar
Carmen Capriles
Reacción Climática
La Paz, 20 de febrero del 2016

2. Women and Climate Change
• Although less than a decade ago the relationship between women
and climate change, as well as the gender dimension of climate
change were unknown or not visible, as the impacts of global
warming become more severe and tangibly manifest, the
relationship becomes increasingly apparent, a series of changes in
climate that are manifested in the form of floods, droughts, snow,
frost, heat or wind off season have shown a marked relation that is
difficult to ignore.
• These events have highlighted the vulnerability of women,
especially in rural areas because they are responsible for much of
the small-scale farming and highlighting the lack of access to
resources, education, health systems Unlike the man who has a
different dynamic migration that allows you to opt out of the
activities of the house to work in different settings, in the
community, in the city or in another country, according to what the
situation demands, accessing more education and greater
resources

3. Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for
Sustainable Development
Sustainable Development Goals
Goal 1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere
Goal 2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable
agriculture
Goal 3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
Goal 4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning
opportunities for all
Goal 5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
Goal 6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
Goal 7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
Goal 8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive
employment and decent work for all
Goal 9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and
foster innovation
Goal 10. Reduce inequality within and among countries
Goal 11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
Goal 12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
Goal 13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts*
Goal 14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable
development
Goal 13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts*
Goal 14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development
Goal 15. Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage
forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
Goal 16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice
for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
Goal 17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable
development
* Acknowledging that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is the primary
international, intergovernmental forum for negotiating the global response to climate change.
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org

4. GOAL 5
Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
• 5.1End all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere
• 5.2Eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in the public and
private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation
• 5.3Eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and
female genital mutilation
• 5.4Recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of
public services, infrastructure and social protection policies and the promotion of
shared responsibility within the household and the family as nationally
appropriate
• 5.5Ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for
leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life
• 5.6Ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive
rights as agreed in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International
Conference on Population and Development and the Beijing Platform for Action
and the outcome documents of their review conferences
• 5.aUndertake reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources, as well
as access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property,
financial services, inheritance and natural resources, in accordance with national
laws
• 5.bEnhance the use of enabling technology, in particular information and
communications technology, to promote the empowerment of women
• 5.cAdopt and strengthen sound policies and enforceable legislation for the
promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls at all
levels
GOAL 13
Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts*
• 13.1Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and
natural disasters in all countries
• 13.2Integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies and
planning
• 13.3Improve education, awareness-raising and human and institutional capacity
on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning
• 13.aImplement the commitment undertaken by developed-country parties to the
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to a goal of mobilizing
jointly $100 billion annually by 2020 from all sources to address the needs of
developing countries in the context of meaningful mitigation actions and
transparency on implementation and fully operationalize the Green Climate Fund
through its capitalization as soon as possible
• 13.bPromote mechanisms for raising capacity for effective climate change-
related planning and management in least developed countries and small island
developing States, including focusing on women, youth and local and
marginalized communities
* Acknowledging that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change is the primary international,
intergovernmental forum for negotiating the global response to climate change.
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org

5. Conference of the Parties of the United Nations
Framework on the Convention on Climate Change
• The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or “UNFCCC”, was adopted during the Rio de
Janeiro Earth Summit in 1992. It entered into force on 21 March 1994 and has been ratified by 196 States, which
constitute the “Parties” to the Convention – its stakeholders.
This Framework Convention is a universal convention of principle, acknowledging the existence of anthropogenic
(human-induced) climate change and giving industrialized countries the major part of responsibility for combating
it.
The Conference of the Parties (COP), made up of all “States Parties”, is the Convention’s supreme decision-
making body. It meets every year in a global session where decisions are made to meet goals for combating
climate change. Decisions can only be made unanimously by the States Parties or by consensus.

6. 21st Session of the Conference of the Parties and 11th Session of
the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the
Parties to the Kyoto Protocol- UNFCCC COP 21/ CMP 11
• From November 30th to December 11th, 2015, France hosted and presided the 21st Session
of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change (COP21/CMP11), otherwise known as “Paris 2015”. COP21 was be a crucial
conference, as it had to achieve a new international agreement on the climate, applicable
to all countries, with the aim of keeping global warming below 2°C.
• For more than two weeks, women around the world participated directly in the
negotiations, press conferences, training, organizing events, wrote articles, publishing
reports and newsletters, joining the demonstrations, marches and collaborating with
dozens of colleagues around the world who participated to make an urgent call to action in
Paris.

7. Civil Society participation on the UNFCCC
The Constituencies: Shared platforms for civil society and non-governmental organizations
which observe the annual conferences
• There are now around 1,400 such organizations observing the annual conferences and
many have grouped themselves into constituencies. These constituencies provide focal
points for easier interaction with the UNFCCC Secretariat, based in Bonn, and individual
governments. There are currently nine constituencies and they are broadly grouped by
the type of organizations they represent: businesses and industry organizations;
environmental organizations; local and municipal governments; trade unions; research
and independent organizations; and organizations that work for the rights of
indigenous people; young people; agricultural workers; and women and gender rights.
TheWomen and Gender Constituency:The platform for observer organizations working to
ensure women’s rights and gender justice within the climate change convention
framework
• TheWomen and Gender Constituency provides a number of ways for civil society and
non-governmental organizations which work for women’s rights and gender justice,
environmental protection, or both, to influence the annual conferences and help
develop the UNFCCC. It provides a platform to exchange information between
members and with the UNFCCC Secretariat. The constituency also ensures that
meetings, workshops and conferences include the participation and representation of
women’s civil society and non-governmental organizations which otherwise would not
be able to attend.

8. What do we want?
A gender responsive climate agreement!
A just and gender-responsive climate agreement can take different forms, but fundamentally it will;
• respect and promote human rights and gender equality:
• ensure sustainable development and environmental integrity;
• require fair, equitable,
• ambitious and binding mitigation commitments in line with the principles of Common but Differentiated
Responsibilities (CBDR);
• call for urgent and prioritized adaptation action and resources that respond to the most vulnerable countries,
communities and populations;
• demand a sustainable energy paradigm that prioritizes safe, decentralized renewable energy systems that benefit
people and communities;
• ensure adequate, new, additional and predictable climate finance for developing countries;
• provide resources to reconcile loss and damage already incurred from climate inaction;
• and, ensure full, inclusive and gender-equitable public participation in decision-making, with increased mandatory ex-
ante and periodic human rights and gender equality impact assessments.
• It must ensure that gender equality, equal access to decision making, and benefit sharing are integrated into all its
provisions, including through gender-responsive means of implementation.
• Sex and gender disaggregated data and analysis of the underlying causes of any gender disparities must be
mainstreamed in all information, communication and reporting systems.

9. Opening interventions at COP21
• PARIS, France (Dec. 1, 2015) – OnTuesday, several interventions were held on behalf of theWomen and
Gender Constituency during the opening plenaries at COP21.
• Bridget Burns from Women’s Environmental and Development Organization (USA) called in the COP opening plenary “for a
true act of defiance” that would let us leave this COP committing to “a genuinely transformative and binding agreement
which challenges dirty economies, political and military systems, and fund renewable and just futures for all”.
• In the SBSTA opening plenary, Kalyani Raj from All IndiaWomen’s Conference (India) demanded “safe, affordable and
gender-responsive technology development and transfer”, as well as a “rejection of market-based mechanisms in the new
agreement”, and progress on gender aspects in other areas of the SBSTA agenda.
• Kate Cahoon from GenderCC –Women for Climate Justice (Germany/Australia) held an intervention in the SBI opening,
pointing out that in discussions under the new agreement, the linkages between gender and mitigation and technology are
still lacking. She urged Parties to take the lessons learned under the LimaWork Programme on Gender into consideration
and push forward with more urgent action
(WGC, Dic 2015)

10. The Paris Agreement
• Acknowledges that climate change is a common concern of humankind, Parties should, when taking action to address climate change,
respect, promote and consider their respective obligations on human rights, the right to health, the rights of indigenous peoples, local
communities, migrants, children, persons with disabilities and people in vulnerable situations and the right to development, as well as gender
equality, empowerment of women and intergenerational equity.
Aims
• The aim of the convention is described inArticle 2, "enhancing the implementation" of the UNFCCC through:
• "(a) Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the
temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate
change;
• (b) Increasing the ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change and foster climate resilience and low greenhouse gas emissions
development, in a manner that does not threaten food production;
• (c) Making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development."
• Countries furthermore aim to reach "global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible".

11. A Reality Check on the Paris Agreement:
Women Demand Climate Justice
What is the purpose of a global climate agreement if not to save people and the planet?
• We see that the world wants hope, that we want to congratulate ourselves for moving forward with this process, but leaders, we are here for a
reality check.
• This agreement fundamentally does not address the needs of the most vulnerable countries, communities and people of the world. It fails to
address the structures of injustice and inequality which have caused the climate crisis and hold the historical polluters sufficiently to account.
• We know we need to stay below 1.5 degrees for a chance at survival, and we recognize the importance of seeing this goal in the final Paris
Agreement. But seeing this goal on paper is not enough.We demand it in actions as the proof of the full commitment to that goal, not a vague
aspiration. If not significantly ramped up, countries’ collective emissions plans lead us to the prospect of a 3.2 – 3.7 degree rise.
• We will never give up on our beautiful planet.We will never give up on our demand for climate justice.
• This agreement has failed to embrace and respond to this moment for urgent and just transitions, but we have not.We have used this space of
international policy-making to raise our voices and embolden our movements.
• Together, we will continue to challenge injustice for the protection of the people and the planet: Another world is possible!

12. Climate Action inView of the Gathering
• In 2015 new international agendas where agreed focus on sustainable development and climate change.
• We know that there is still a lot to be done and that may be a great opportunity to do things that involve the women
that committed in the gathering to keep on engaging with women and climate change.
• We are aware that although commitments have being made at an international level it is important to work on ground
at local and national levels.
• Women are key to achieve sustainable development and to find solutions to climate change therefore it is important to
keep empowering women at all levels.
• Spirituality helps us have more conscience on what is going on in the world it is important to have a clear mind and an
open heart to be ready to help our beautiful planet.