The "World's Most Powerful Feminist" Turns Her Back On Women of Color From North America

Today we had a meeting with the Women's Caucus on Gender and REDD. WEDO has taken a pro-REDD stance, although they say they are anti market mechanisms. They want to meet again Wednesday.

Also it was apparently the first time the Women's Caucus was held bilingually. It continues to surprise me how surprised people are for the ease with which we can have bilingual meetings. But it was fun.

Then there was a high level women's ministers meeting - in the Sala Monarca, Cancunmesse Hall D

Host: Mary Robinson, Chair of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED); founding member and Chair of the Council of Women World Leaders; one of the European members of the Trilateral Commission.
Karen Christiana Figueres Olsen, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
Ambassador Patricia Espinosa, Secretary of Foreign Relations of Mexico and President of UN Conferences on Climate Change (COP16)
Connie Hedegaard, European Commissioner for Climate Action,
Ms. Lykke Friis, Danish Minister for Climate and Energy and equal rights
Maria Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, Coordinating Minister of Patrimony from Ecuador.

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The conversation was rhetorically beautiful, you know, women are so important to development and well-being and care-taking of families and all that jazz.

In particular the compañera from Ecuador actually is powerful and strong on plurinational state of Ecuador, and grassroots solutions. Watch that video here:

However, when Mari Rose and Michele Roberts said something about the release of the No REDDs reader and attempted to give a copy to Mary Robinson after the panel was over, basically the "most powerful feminist in the world" turned her back on women of color from frontline and impacted communities. She was much more interested in meeting with other European women after the panel than either Mari Rose or Michele. I have the whole thing on video. And that pretty much sums up my experience with white women here, although there are great allies including Ana Filippini and it was clarified that the GenderCC constituency group has a strong position against market mechanisms. Typical.

VIDEOS From Today:

Mari Rose Taruc, APEN and APACC