How we are losing the gender equality battle against Saudi Arabia

Last week, we lost one of the most important gender battles on this COP. For the past years, parties have been trying to create a process in which to promote gender equality in the climate negotiations, and therefore on mitigation, adaptation, technology and implementation in actual field projects. However, the regressive position by one country –and the silent acceptance from all but Mexico– was enough to maim the idea.

If you care about gender equality, and if you think that should be a ruling principle within UNFCCC, please reach out to your delegates and ask them to speak out on this topic. There is still another chance to fight for it, but everything seems so silent. Where is the EU, for instance? Where is Chile, with President Bachelet?

But that’s later. This post is about last week, when we lost the gender equality first round. So: enter the gender villain.

One nice thing about being a negotiation trackers is finger-pointing at the bad guys. You know, like Australia committing to ludicrous Green Climate Fund pledges (that are also part of their aid budget), India refusing to peak their emissions and, well, Canada.

But today I want to write about an usual suspect in these climate talks: Saudi Arabia.

There are two major arenas where these oil-lover folks love to dwell: defending big fossil fuel companies, invesments and exploration, and backtracking on gender. I’ll walk you through what happened last week and how we lost to Saudi Arabia on gender.

You might know by now that UNFCCC is not so kind on gender policy. According to the Global Gender and Climate Action, gender was not even mentioned in an official document before 2007 and, even now, men overshadow women in a 3:1 ratio on the 126 board members to six major bodies, including the Adaptation Committee, the Finance Committee and the Green Climate Fund.

Therefore, something needs to be done. The solution was creating a two-year work programme for promoting gender within the UNFCCC, and this was discussed as item 16 of the SBI.

As pretty much anything else, gender needs principles by which to be guided. There has to be certain language on the text and that wording has to be agreed upon by all parties (good luck!). And Friday last week, a row erupted among countries on which term to use. So, let’s take this party to the gender UNFCCC dictionary.

(UNFCCC on gender atm)

The most basic gender term is “gender balance”, which is men sharing the pie with women. I’m quoting UNDP on this one:

The ratio of women to men in any given situation. Gender balance is achieved when there are approximately equal number of men and women present or participating.

That’s a start, but a term that needs some polishing. It was used in the 2012 Doha Declaration on gender and climate change, to the dismay of many gender activists and some gender champions among the parties.

This dismay happened because many countries, civil society and the gender constituency pushed (and still do) for a concept called gender equality. This is something the UNFCCC agreed to in Cancun on 2010. Even with the small setback in Doha on 2012, no one had really challenged this for some time.

This is the definition, courtesy of the Global Gender and Climate Alliance.

Gender equality means that the different behaviors, aspirations and the needs of women and men are considered, valued and favored equally. It does not mean that women and men have to become the same, but that their rights, responsibilities and opportunities will not depend on whether they are born male or female.

The logic is straightforward: numbers alone won’t make it. There are way too many variables playing against women in climate change issues (and many others as well). While women are a fantastic vehicle for mitigation projects and to reduce vulnerabilities in communities, there are usually disregarded. Picture this scene depicted by IPS News:

On a global level, a study by the German Development Institute concluded that women produce between 60 and 80% of all food in the developing world. However, the same study, published in 2009, determined that only 10% of them were landowners, and barely 2% had proper paperwork for their land.

This means that in the event of finance by donors or international relief agencies tackling climate vulnerability reach those agricultural regions, it’s more likely for men to receive it, since they are the official landowners, thus deepening the gender inequality gap and the worldwide warming challenge.

This is why a work program on gender equality, not only gender balance, was needed.

Well, last year in Warsaw the parties weren’t able to agree on the 2-year work program. According to sources within the gender constituency, the US was not feeling comfortable with the wording, but finally agreed this year. Interested countries talked before COP20 to find common grounds and all that was left was pretty much just roughing the edges. “No one was challenging gender equality before Lima,” a member of the gender constituency told me.

Starting this COP, Malawi delivered a submission on how gender should look. It was all about gender equality, which was mentioned 12 times throughout the document.

There was a bit of an issue: the term was bracketed throughout the discussion. For those unfamiliar with ‘bracketed’, it means that parties weren’t able to agree on it and decided to make their mind later on. When that later on finally arrived, on Friday, Saudi Arabia took the floor and was all like: HELL NO!

Saudi Arabia would rather have gender balance. I guess it makes sense: if you won’t allow women to drive in your country, this is just a coherent stance. So yes, the Saudis went all non-gender friendly in here.

But there were 195 parties left (including the EU, remember) who could have stood up and made a rant about it: This is the 21st century! This is a UN Convention! This is basic human rights! Let me tell you what happened: all of them, but Mexico, stood there and watched the Saudis get away with it.

This might be explained by the fact that these people have worked for so long on this work programme that they were afraid to have another Warsaw, where they couldn’t agree on the text. The way they might see it, having agreed on the text is a nice step forward. Mexico doesn’t share that view, according to Roberto Dondisch, a senior Foreign Affairs officer.

“For us, gender equality is important, and it’s not something new at all. It was established since the Cancun COP (in 2010), so it’s something we can’t accept backtracking on,”

So, the SBI final decision on the work programme has tons of references to gender balance and ONE mention of gender equality. That’s something, right? Well, not really.

This is the paragraph in which gender equality is mentioned:

Acknowledging the progress made in advancing gender balance and gender equality within the context of climate change policies and in line with the individual country circumstances and gender-responsive climate policy through the decisions referred to above, and the need for gender mainstreaming through all relevant targets and goals in activities under the Convention as an important contribution to increase their effectiveness

First of all. Acknowledging?! Well, whatever. But when it comes to the line in bold, there’s the real trick. It means that despite gender equality being there, if your country’s circumstances (aka, the way you are used to treating women) are different from what the UN expects, that’s totally fine. Carry on.

Only Mexico was pushing for gender equality right until the end, and I understand they even stated in the SBI closing session that they didn’t agree with the language for the two-year work program. But in the end, that’s the official document. What happened with Malawi’s submission?

Deservedly, Saudi Arabia got a Fossil of the Day last Saturday for their spreading prejudice in the process.

Yes.

SBI decisions have to go through the COP, so there’s another chance to change ‘gender balance’ to ‘gender equality’. Mexico is likely to make a stand and I was told by AILAC members that they were also going to push for equality to be the final term on the table. That would require COP to reopen a topic already decided by the SBI, but that could be done, even when it’s not that usual.

So push for your countries, maybe they join those already willing to fight the good fight and we can get this thing moving.

This is another crucial battle still to come, pivotal to the gender discussion within the climate change negotiations. What will happen with gender in the new 2105 agreement? Would it be gender balance, and be satisfied with countries having a certain number of women in their delegation?

Or can we make it gender equality, thus providing women from all over the world the chance to have their behaviors, aspirations and the needs considered, valued and favored equally than those of men.

Let’s take a look into how gender is now represented in the ADP. There is not a single mention, not one, to gender equality. In the preamble there’s a mention of a gender-responsive approach, but doesn’t say how.

The solution is having a final push in the ADP sessions, and the gender constituency have everything spelled out of how it should be. For instance, they want a 3.3 article in the General section of the Elements that says:

Ensuring gender equality and human rights in all decision making and implementation of climate policies and actions.

Can we make this happen? Maybe it’s not possible, but it’s necessary. A strong movement on this can make countries around the world realize that climate change needs to incorporate gender equality and that goes for the ADP as well. This is the only way we can make human rights, including women’s rights, a big part of our future.