Young women push for greater representation in the climate debate
“Too male, pale and stale,” was how Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland, described last year’s international climate negotiations at the Conference of the Parties (COP) in Glasgow.
“Gender” first appeared in the COP process in the text approved at the end of the seventh annual climate summit, in Marrakesh in 2001. But, 19 conferences later, the goal of “gender balance” — in either the UN bodies working on climate change, or in the delegations that negotiate the agreements aimed at reducing emissions — remains elusive.
Women were far from equally represented at COP26 and the balance is unlikely to shift radically at this year’s meeting in Egypt.
Women occupied 39 per cent of positions in UN climate bodies in 2022, compared with 34 per cent in 2021, the most recent report shows. Yet, the number of women appointed as heads and deputy heads of national delegations dropped by 1 per cent last year, reversing a more positive trend since 2018.
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Tax Cognition
