GenderCC, the progressive women's organization that helped to found and anchor the Women's Caucus at the UNFCCC talks every year, released this statement on the current state of the proceedings.
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PRESS STATEMENT:
7 April 2011
Contact person: Nina Somera,
nina@gendercc.net,
+63 9218122066 http://www.gendercc.net/ http://www.gendercc.net/metanavigation/press.html Still A Frozen Pie:
GenderCC – Women for Climate Justice on the Bangkok Intersessional Meeting 2011
As the Bangkok climate talks are about to end, there are more reasonsfor women to be worried about, not only on substantive issues but the very direction where the talks are heading. Efforts of developed countries in keeping the Kyoto Protocol and the Bali Action Plan in oblivion are quite apparent while discussion on the Long Term Cooperative Action has been stalled. We fear that we are stuck with a half-baked pie from Copenhagen and Cancun.
Moreover, we find the flour hardly sifted as commitments of developed
countries continue to evade their historical responsibility, the heavy
reliance on false and risky solutions and the other pending tasks to
avert the current climate crisis.
Mitigation - The level of ambition among developed countries in
cutting down their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is way below what science prescribes. And because most of them are so dependent on the carbon economy, developing countries are likely to account for at least 70 per cent of mitigation pledges to be done by 2020.
It is alarming that mitigation efforts include a shift to nuclear
energy that has recently demonstrated its devastating impact that even a very advanced and prepared country like Japan could not control. Despite the dearth of gender differentiated data, some studies have shown that women are more keen towards renewable energy sources rather than nuclear. In two surveys in the 1995 and 1997, more Korean women rejected nuclear power. In 2005, only 22 per cent of women favored the delay of Germany’s nuclear power’s phase out.
“Clean energy” likewise still includes large-scale hydropower, despite
its long history of forcibly evicting communities in the Mekong and
other areas, and degrading river flows and biodiversity, regardless of
the “safeguards” funding agencies particularly the multilateral
development banks have adopted.
And however important to integrate gender in the carbon markets and
REDD Plus, the latter are still false solutions which can lead to a
poisonous scramble for resources and engender danger, displacement and disempowerment.
Technology Transfer - There are also no signs of the “intellectual
property” regime of being tempered at the very least, making the more
appropriate and strategic technologies available and affordable to
communities whose climate resiliency needs to be built and
strengthened. The same regime saw on many occasions, seeds and plant varieties grown for generations by women and their communities have been taken by companies, if not destroyed by the genetically-modified ones.
Adaptation - We welcome some countries’ call for gender balance in the adaptation committee. However, there is still no clarity on whether
gender will remain as a criterion in the selection of adaptation
initiatives. There is also no assurance yet whether 50 per cent of the
funds will go to adaptation. Even the very constitution of the Green
Climate Fund (GCF) remains unclear. We ask for at least 30 per cent
allocation of the GCF and so-called innovative sources for women and gender-focused adaptation initiatives.
Finance - But we are not merely asking for a share of the pie:
Financial resources for the GCF must be additional, scaled-up, public, grant-based, directly accessible, adequate and predictable. Also developing countries must have a huge stake in the governance and operationalization of the Fund.
With the outcome of Bangkok, we feel that many opportunities were
missed. We therefore urge governments particularly developed countries especially the United States to move forward in a way that respects a multilateral process and act on the interest of women and communities.
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