As the U.K. opens the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, the lack of women’s senior leadership in climate negotiations has been raised as an issue of concern by activists.
“Lack of female leadership in climate decisions affects our economy, our social structure, our ability to innovate and create solutions.”
When the global face to climate action is Greta Thunberg, it can appear that women and girls are well represented at the top table. But that is not the case.
As the U.K. opens the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, the lack of women’s senior leadership in climate negotiations has been raised as an issue of concern by activists.
SHE Changes Climate, a campaign founded in 2020 to call for equal gender representation in climate negotiations, claims that men took up 10 of the 12 UK leadership team positions. “Lack of female leadership in climate decisions affects our economy, our social structure, our ability to innovate and create solutions,” said Antoinette Vermilye, Co-Founder of the campaign.
Examining the wider composition of the U.K. COP26 team, there is higher representation of women (45%), but their roles tend to relate to event organizing, or they serve as Advisors rather than the core team members. This gendered division of labor at the COP26 leadership team is characteristic of wider systemic issues in climate negotiations.
Climate negotiations at COP are driven predominantly by governments of states which need to abide by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Given low representation of women in political positions— globally, only 21% of government ministers were women— it is not surprising that climate delegations are gender imbalanced.
The issue of women’s under-representation in climate negotiations is further exacerbated by the gender bias in media. The 28% statistic came from an Oxfam report, which also found that gender inequalities existed not only in terms of the percentage of news written by women, but the number of times women experts and politicians were quoted.
Despite these systemic challenges, there are positive steps being taken towards gender equality at COP26. During the two-week summit, there will be a day devoted to gender issues; and the Women in Finance Climate Action Group has also been set up.
A Cop26 spokesperson said: “Women and girls have a critical role to play in the fight against the climate crisis – as decision-makers, educators and advocates at all levels. Progress is being made, with women among some of the most influential figures in international climate diplomacy today, but there is more to be done.
“Women are leading the way”
Women must be enabled to play a greater role at the COP26 summit, as the needs of women and girls are being overlooked amid the global climate crisis, a coalition of feminist groups has said.
The Global Women’s Assembly for Climate Justice has laid out a call for action at the UN general assembly, including demands that world leaders meeting at Cop26, in Glasgow this November, must end fossil fuel expansion and move to 100% renewable energy.
