The Woke Climate Change Gender Agenda By Mrs Vera West
Climate change activists are fully revealing that their agenda is not primarily the environment, which is shown by the almost universal support for migration by the environmentalists, but also by the fact that we are now being told that female empowerment is needed to end the climate crisis. Well, following this “logic,” women in the corporate sphere and politics haver not been any different from men, so it is just special interest pleading. Women championing this thesis include Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, and Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the US House of Representatives, so I rest my case.
“The world as designed by men has destroyed many things,” Cop26 delegates have been told, as leaders and campaigners warned that the climate crisis could not be ended without the empowerment of women.
Women and girls around the world suffer disproportionately from the impacts of climate breakdown, as they are on average poorer, less educated and more dependent on subsistence farming. A UN report found 80% of those displaced by the climate emergency are women.
The focus on gender equality on Tuesday saw indigenous women and politicians including Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, and Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the US House of Representatives, demand increased investment.
Angelica Ponce, executive director of the Plurinational Authority for Mother Earth in Bolivia, said: “The world as designed by men has destroyed many things. The world should begin thinking like women. If it was designed by a woman, it would end violence against women and children.
“We want to be in the corridors of power and take part in decisions at international level to end this struggle of climate justice,” she said. “As indigenous women, we live day-by-day the cruel reality of climate change in our land.”
Sturgeon said: “When world leaders gathered here last week, of the 120 or so, a tiny minority were women – that needs to change and it needs to change quickly. There is no doubt, we must ensure that climate change is a feminist issue. [But] women are not pleading to be supported. We’re demanding to be empowered.”
Alok Sharma, the UK minister and president of Cop26, said: “We know from our efforts to tackle climate change that it is more effective when we put women and girls at the heart of those efforts.”
Climate-related events will prevent at least 4 million girls in lower-income countries from completing their education in 2021, he said, citing a Malala Fund report. On current trends, the climate crisis will contribute to at least 12.5 million girls not completing their education each year, the report said.
“That is an absolute travesty and a dangerous one,” Sharma said. “Because, as well as being a fundamental good in itself, education empowers girls and equips them to deal with the effects of climate change and to take climate action.” He announced that the UK was giving £165m to tackle climate change while addressing gender inequalities.
Per Olsson Fridh, Sweden’s minister for international development cooperation, told Cop26: “Women are not the polluters of this world, yet, they carry the consequences of climate change on their shoulders. Without a gender perspective, we miss out on invaluable knowledge needed for a sustainable green transition. A feminist approach is simply the only smart thing to do.”
Pelosi said: “If I ruled the world, the one thing that I would do is invest in the education of women. When women succeed, the world succeeds.”
Åsa Regnér, from UN Women, said: “Only 3% of the climate overseas development aid actually targets women’s rights and gender equality specifically. The UN, with its convening power, should really address that because as long as we don’t have the resources, little will happen.”
Some countries announced the climate projects they funded would have to incorporate gender equality. Patricia Fuller, Canada’s climate change ambassador, said: “As part of the doubling of Canada’s climate finance pledge to C$5.3bn (£3.1bn) over five years, Canada will apply the target of 80% for projects that will target gender equality outcomes. If we are to win the fight against climate change, we need to have women participating equally in climate action.”
Germany also announced that gender justice was to become a “guiding principle” for its €4.5bn (£3.8bn) International Climate Initiative.
Diaka Selena Koroma, an ActionAid climate activist from Sierra Leone, witnessed the devastating mudslides that hit Freetown in 2017 and was meant to attend Cop26, but her visa did not arrive in time.
“If women and young people who are most affected by climate impacts are not represented at platforms like Cop26, leaders will not feel the pressure to commit to climate targets,” she said.
Sophie Rigg, also at ActionAid UK, said: “It is all well and good hosting a dedicated ‘gender day’, but the UK government must commit to making sure that all UK financing on climate also tackles gender inequality.”
Sharma said: “We have the [UN climate convention’s] Gender Action Plan, agreed back in 2019. But what we actually need is for every single country to implement this plan and to be guided by the UN Women-convened Feminist Action for Climate Justice Coalition, which launched earlier this year.”
Oh, there was the mandatory anti-colonialism theme at the climate change talk fest too, emphasising how bad the West was for creating the climate crisis by making the modern world, that enabled the large populations of the third world to exist in the first place. And, the West must pay for the Third World to deal with this so-called crisis.
“African nations want Cop26 to open discussions this week on a mega-financing deal that would channel $700bn (£520bn) every year from 2025 to help developing nations adapt to the climate crisis.
Tanguy Gahouma-Bekale, the chair of the African Group of Negotiators on climate change, said the increased finance was needed for the accelerated phase of decarbonisation required to hold global heating to 1.5C.
These funds would also be essential, he said, to cope with the impacts, including fiercer heat, widening droughts and more intense storms and floods, which are using up an increasingly large share of GDP. According to a recent study, some African nations are already spending more on climate adaptation than on healthcare and education.
“The work on this needs to start now,” said the climate diplomat from Gabon. “Talks about finance take time so we need to have a roadmap now with clear milestones on how to achieve targets after 2025 to ensure the money flows every year.”
It is also a question of justice. The climate problem was largely created by Europe, North America and east Asia, but the worst impacts are in the southern hemisphere. In 2009, rich nations promised $100bn a year, which was considered a downpayment and an important gesture of trust.
Until now, they have welched on the deal by providing only 80% of what they had promised. For the African group, Glasgow is a time to make amends and lift the level of support in line with the greater urgency demanded by science.
The money is needed immediately, say negotiators. According to a recent study by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, Cameron devotes close to 9% of its GDP on climate adaptation, Ethiopia 8%, Zimbabwe 9%, while Sierra Leone, Senegal and Ghana are all more than 7%. Even with these high shares of domestic funding, the study found a gap of about 80% between need and expenditure.
Gahouma-Bekale, who also serves as special adviser to the Gabonese president, Ali Bongo, said the opening phase of Cop26 had pushed the world in a more positive direction, but words needed to be backed by actions in the second week.
“We have received some assurance during the world leaders’ summit that they really want to close the gap and we have seen strong announcements on deforestation and methane,” he said. “What we want to see now is implementation. Only implementation can give us the assurance we need that we can keep warming to 1.5C.”
Africa accounts for less than 4% of historical global emissions, compared with 25% for the USA, 22% for the EU and 13% for China. But it has suffered many of the most devastating effects of climate disruption, recently including droughts in the Sahel and floods in the Nile delta. In future, it is expected to be among the most vulnerable regions of the world to heatwaves and crop failures.
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Some African countries have shown leadership. Gabon is among a handful of nations that already have a carbon-negative economy because its vast tropical forests in the Congo Basin absorb more greenhouse gases than its factories, cars and cities emit. It has recently passed an ambitious climate law that aims to ensure the country remains dependant on forests and agriculture rather than the fossil fuel industry. To achieve this goal, it needs outside support so that the government can continue to raise living standards.
Many African nations depend on coal for electricity and did not join a declaration this week by more than 40 countries to quit this most polluting of fossil fuels. Gahouma-Bekale said this pledge was an important step forward, but developing nations would need more time.
“This is very good news for the world,” he said. “If we want to succeed with the Paris goals, then we must phase out all fossil fuels, and coal is among them. But our situation in Africa is different. We are still on our way to be developed. We can’t drastically stop coal and oil. For now we need to use it to eradicate poverty and access to energy. We will need support for the transition. And we need to be flexible. For five to 10 years, we must do the two together [coal and renewables] so the transition can be smooth.”
That transition will depend on a flow of funding. African nations insist wealthy countries are held as rigorously to account on their finance promises as they are on emissions reductions. That means regular reporting on the levels of support provided, needed and received.
“What we want to achieve at this Cop is a transparency framework with strong rules on accounting,” said Gahouma-Bekale.”
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