December 02, 2007

Is climate change a gender issue?

..."women are not represented in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change or the Kyoto Protocol..."

..."Governments first agreed to tackle climate change at an ''Earth Summit'' in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. During that meeting, leaders created the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which set a non-binding goal of stabilizing emissions at 1990 levels by 2000. This goal was not met overall. The Kyoto Protocol was the follow-up to the this first initiative and is the first legally binding global agreement to cut greenhouse gases (http://www.forbes.com/home_europe/newswire/2003/12/09/rtr1175321.html). The Kyoto Protocol, commits industrialized nations to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, principally carbon dioxide, by around 5.2% below their 1990 levels by 2007. One hundred and twenty countries have ratified the Kyoto Protocol.

But women are not represented in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change or the Kyoto Protocol. Margaret Skutsch points out, ''It takes no more than a simple word search of the UN Framework Convention for Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol, the two most important treaties which relate to global efforts to combat climate change, to discover that the words ''gender'' and ''women'' are not mentioned in either'' (1). Are men and women impacted by climate change in the same ways or have women and their specific concerns been left out of the picture?

The Gender and Climate Change web site argues that gender is very important to consider when looking at issues of climate change..."

source: AWID http://www.awid.org/go.php?stid=862