The structure of the current global economic system is based in a combination of an international gendered division of labor, exploitation and domination that excludes women from being represented on an equal basis and in equal numbers as men. However, we want socio-economic development not to be driven by market mechanisms, but to ensure people’s right to define how they understand and envision development, based on their own rights, local experiences, needs and responses, in ways that are sustainable for our planet.

Women cannot accept the mere inclusion of gender in market mechanisms that recognise “differences” of gender roles without changing the exploitative and oppressive power relations in it, nor can we accept the use these “differences” to ensure the effectiveness and efficiency of these mechanisms to make more and more profit for big corporations and the very few in power. Our feminist approach to climate, gender and environmental justice confirms our understandings that market mechanisms do not transform the current economic paradigm nor construction of equality and justice between men and women and our relationship to nature.

We also stress the importance of human rights based approach and remind the governments of their obligations under the international human rights framework. In order to ensure women’s human rights, including economic and social rights, the major source of funding should be public. Women’s rights to information, resources and technologies must be ensured. We demand that all adaptation finance is provided as grants to avoid burdening indebted developing countries and poor people with debts. Moreover, our experiences of large-scale projects funded by international financial institutions, lead us to reject the proposals that the World Bank takes a central role in administering the climate change financing mechanisms.

We propose that all stakeholders work together towards a new paradigm that is based on realisation of human rights of all, men and women, particularly poor, marginalisd women and indigenous peoples to promote a sustainable partnership with – not domination of – nature and a people-centred economic system.

This was stated at:

Climate Justice Now! Press Conference, Kosi Palm room, Tuesday 6 December, 13:30-14:00

The dominance of “the 1%” corporate elite over “the 99%” of the people is being challenged around the world.  These same tensions and dynamics are at play here at the UNFCCC COP-17, which has been taken over by the interests of corporations. The UNFCCC process is betraying the interests of people globally while providing industry with new opportunities to profit from climate chaos.

Meanwhile, there is great debate in the halls of the ICC about the future of the Clean Development Mechanism, Carbon Markets, REDD+ and the Kyoto Protocol itself.  Should these industry-friendly schemes continue or is the process so corrupt and bankrupt that it needs to be eliminated and replaced by truly just and effective climate mitigation strategies? Climate Justice Now! speakers will address these issues from the perspective of the global climate justice movement and present real, community-based solutions.    

Women and men, due to their gender roles and existing unequal power relations between them, have different vulnerabilities and responses to the impact of critical and harmful condition of global climate change. They have differentiated capabilities and preferences regarding policies and measures to tackle the problems. The existing policy framework to tackle climate change, however, is ignorant of unequal power relations between men and women.

APWLD stipulates full integration of gender dimension in addressing climate change in accordance with international human rights, including women’s human rights. APWLD supports the most marginalised women in Asia and the Pacific who are among the most vulnerable to the negative impact of climate change, yet who have least contributed to the cause of climate change.

A research was conducted among rural, indigenous and dalit women in India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the Philippines who engage in small-scale farming, fishery and other subsistence activities. Although the political, social and economic context of each country in the region differs, the research revealed that impacts of climate change have aggravated gender inequities and worsened situation of women. Already saddled with unjust and discriminatory policies and existing gender norms, women face great difficulty coping with climate change impacts. The lack of clear land tenure system, lack of adequate social services on education, health, water, decent jobs and support for small scale agriculture, fishery and forestry are given factors that have only been worsened with the advent of climate change.

The research results also demonstrated that rural, indigenous and dalit women in those countries are gatekeepers of their ecosystem and communities, struggling to conserve diminishing resources for survival and adaptation. The strategies they have undertaken are family or community-based, low-carbon and more in harmony with natural ecological system. Women are ready to take leadership towards more resilient community building using their knowledge and skills.

APWLD therefore calls for climate change policies at global and national levels that will bring about the following:

§  Integrate gender perspective and ensure non-discrimination against and support for the most marginalized populations, rural, indigenous and dalit women;

§  Recognise the role of rural, indigenous and dalit women in small scale farming, fisheries, hunting and other activities;

§  Provide for  women’s access to and control of land, water and other natural resources as well as access to adequate social services and technology meaningful to strengthening their resilience;

§  Ensure women and their organizations and communities’ direct access to funds catering to their adaptive needs in every sector with adequate resources;

§  Ensure and promote meaningful participation, representation and leadership of women in decision making at all levels;

§  Provide consistent and timely information in relation to climate change science and policy including early warnings of extreme weather events and possible effects in a way that most vulnerable groups including rural, indigenous and dalit women can access in their own languages and other appropriate communication systems.

The briefs of five research reports are available on line.

http://www.apwld.org/latest-news/apwld-releases-climate-justice-briefs/#more-1592

https://twitter.com/#!/apwld

http://www.facebook.com/apwld.ngo

Please visit  http://bit.ly/uoB0tF  FB and Twitter for more updates on APWLD activities at the Durban Climate Change Conference.

An analysis of the Peoples’ Agreement (1) that emerged from the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, held from 20 to 22 April in Cochabamba (Bolivia) may lead us to think that the gender issue was not present at that Conference.

Although in general terms it may be true that a gender perspective was not substantially incorporated into the conclusions of the working groups, gender language and references to women can be found in some of the texts. However, when women are brought up in the working groups’ conclusions, it is mainly as vulnerable group. For example, group 6 on migrations specifies that it is women who suffer the most in situations arising from migration; group 7 on indigenous peoples, calls for the full and effective participation of vulnerable groups, including women; group 8 on climate debt mentions women twice in connection with vulnerable groups; group 12 on funding appeals for women to have representation in the new funding mechanism that should be set up to take on the costs of climate change; and group 14 on forests asks for recognition of the role of women in the preservation of cultures and the conservation of native forests and jungles and proposes the establishment of an expert group with representation of at least 50% by women. (1)

However, it would not be fair to assess the influence of feminist and women’s groups solely based on the conference texts and not consider the important contributions made alongside the working groups that prepared the final document. Here are some examples:

The Feminist Working group from Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP) made a presentation at a workshop, showing the conclusions of the tribunals on gender and climate change held in seven countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America. The presentation included an analysis of the differentiated gender impacts caused by climate change. These issues are the lack of access to drinking water and water for agriculture, impact on food sovereignty and greater dependence on the economy and the market, prolonged droughts and heavy unseasonal rain and the loss of the ability to produce natural medicines due to reduced availability of the appropriate plants. This activity was positively assessed by the participants as it introduced a relevant but scantly addressed issue at the conference. However, perhaps the most important input of this group was related to the role of education in the generation of changes in production and excessive consumption patterns that are the true causes of climate change.  (2)

The event organized by the Latin American Network of Women Transforming the Economy (Red Latinoamericana de Mujeres Transformando la Economía – REMTE) made important inputs regarding “the structural causes of climate change and the challenges of an economy for life,” an approach in which the proposals of “Living Well” (Buen Vivir), the visions and practices of ancestral community economy, of feminist economy and of ecological economy all converge.  In a very brief summary, they stated that “what matters is to move towards an economy that promotes a broader reproduction of life instead of the reproduction of capital.”

Along the same line, during the Assembly of Social Movements that took place during the conference, women’s struggles did not go by unnoticed. In the Letter made public, it is stated that “resistance [to the climate crisis assessed as part of the global crisis] is being built up from the interrelation of diverse anti-capitalist, anti-patriarchal, anti-colonial and anti-racist approaches”… and that in the “process of articulation under permanent construction” one of the “key moments” will be the Third International Action of the World March of Women to take place in Congo next October.(3)

For their part, the Latin American representatives of Gender CC – Women for Climate Justice, made an analysis of the gender impacts of climate change in Bolivian and Colombian communities. Perhaps their most important contribution was the analysis of the impact on women of the false solutions to climate change proposed so far.  These false solutions include, among others, increased monoculture tree plantations for agrofuels and carbon sinks and major hydroelectric dams promoted as supposedly clean energy sources.  They are false solutions because from the standpoint of climate they do not attack the true causes and, what is even worse, they will not only aggravate injustices towards the poorest communities but also, as has already been proven, they worsen the lives of women in particular. (4)

The Latin American Feminist Community group, the voice of feminist social movements and organizations, also made a substantial input, making public a Pronouncement that arose from a document presented at one of the workshops. This document was discussed during the workshop and later the discussion was continued in an open space, where it received contributions from indigenous women and women from different countries. The Pronouncement analyzes in detail the concepts of Pachamama (Mother Earth), community, reciprocity, autonomy and climate change. As it is a lengthy document we will only refer to some points related to climate change which we believe to be of substance. (5)

Regarding climate change, the pronouncement explains that “it is the consequence of human activity, of human excesses, conceived in the framework of a predatory development model that is sustained by the consumption of fossil fuel and through deforestation and violation of nature in order to increase cement cities. A capitalist and patriarchal system, where everything is a commodity, where everything can become private property and have a price on it, and where any consequence of human activity can be repaired or modified by science and technology. It is the result of a system that … has undermined the basic necessary conditions for perpetuating life in a harmonious cosmos, for us the Pachamama (Mother Earth).”

One of the indigenous members of the movement explained that for them, patriarchy is a system of oppression of which its offspring, such as colonialism and neo-liberalism, are just different ways of plundering life, where the latter is the one that most cynically plunders the Pachamama. For this reason she added, it is not the indigenous peoples who are going to save the planet, because the men and women of the indigenous peoples are also patriarchal and it is patriarchy that is destroying life.  This is the reason for the need of a Pronouncement by Community Feminism, because our struggle is for our dreams.

Regarding the effects of climate change, the group ratified and agreed with the analysis made by other groups that “they are different and more severe for women because of their socially allocated role, where production, feeding and looking after the family is central; bringing up children and working outside the home, which does not imply not doing so-called domestic chores. As a result, women are more intensely affected by changes in the climate.”

The pronouncement rejects the fact that the same patriarchal rationale that inequitably allocates roles and tasks to sustain society is used to face climate change. Those responsible for it, the self-denominated developed countries have plundered, contaminated and forced the Pachamama. Their industries, elites and corporations are attempting to compensate and put a price on destruction. Regarding this, the pronouncement emphatically concludes: “From this community feminist viewpoint we reiterate that we do not want money in exchange for the damage caused to the Pachamama or to women. To accept money would be like a time bomb, it would mean that they will continue exploiting and paying for this exploitation.  We want restitution of rights. The damage caused can no longer be repaired, but the Pachamama’s rights can be restored and for this patriarchy must be dismantled, including its states, its armies, its transnational corporations, its hierarchical rationale and all the violence this means to women and to the Pachamama. We will not accept either that we women are made responsible for the plundering, what we have before us, men and women, is a community task. That is to say a task for all of us.”

Women spoke out clearly in Cochabamba. The enormous task of disseminating these contributions and their true inclusion on the agenda of social movements struggling for change still remains

(1) The full texts can be found on the Conference’s webpage e: http://cmpcc.org/

(2) See details of the conference and the presentation in the text distributed by Ana Agostino available at: http://www.icae2.org/files/349c.pdf

(3) Full text of the Letter in Spanish available at:  http://www.wrm.org.uy/actores/CCC/CMPCC/Movimientos_Sociales.html

(4) Full texts and power point presentations in Spanish available on the webpage of Gender cc: http://www.gendercc.net/

(5) The full document in Spanish is available at: http://www.kaosenlared.net/noticia/pronunciamiento-feminismo-comunitario-latinoamericano-conferencia-pueb

Article published in the English edition of WRM Bulletin, Nº 154, May 2010

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