WUNRN
WOMEN NEED GREATER VOICE IN CLIMATE
CHANGE DEBATE
By Suzanne Hoeksema
NEW YORK, Sep 23 (IPS) - Women's voices remain highly
underrepresented in the climate change debate, say international civil society
leaders attending events taking place around the United Nations Climate Summit
Tuesday.
The summit was attended by 146 national delegations, of
which only seven were headed by women. On the eve of the meet, the head of
Oxfam in Britain, Barbara Stocking, noted that "once again, women find
themselves left out of the negotiations on issues that affect them most".
Oxfam is one of the main contributors of the "tck tck
tck" campaign to "stop the clock on the climate change".
Climate Week, Sep. 20-26, was launched Sunday by a
"Human Countdown" in New York's Central Park. Over a thousand
volunteers came together to call on world leaders attending Tuesday's U.N.
Climate Summit to take swift action to curb greenhouse gases.
The crowd of New Yorkers, dressed in green sweaters and blue
ponchos, formed a human sculpture "the shape of the earth trapped inside
of an hourglass with the earth dissolving like sand".
Among the climate activists here are four women from the
"frontlines of climate change": Uganda, the Cook Islands, Biloxi,
Mississippi and the Carteret Islands, whose lives have been directly affected
by flood, drought, hurricanes and rising sea levels.
So why do we need a focus on women in the climate change
debate? And what can women's organisations do for climate change mitigation?
Stocking argued that women are most deeply affected by
climate change. "They are the ones responsible for the most basic needs:
fetching the water, feeding the family and till the soil and clean the dirt.
They work with water in a very direct way," she told IPS.
In a statement, Finnish President Tarja Halonen said that
"climate change hits most seriously the poorest regions and the weakest
groups of people. Since about 70 percent of the world's poor are women, they
will suffer most."
Sharon Hanshaw, director of Coastal Women for Change in the
city of Biloxi, Mississippi in the southern U.S. and a mother of three
daughters, added that "women have a different perspective on the future.
They think of their children's future, their children's children's future and
the community's survival."
In a compelling story on the effects of globalisation and
climate change on the lives on the Inuit people, Sheila Watt-Cloutier, a
Canadian Inuit herself and holding the International Chair for the Inuit
Circumpolar Council, connects climate change to human rights.
"We Inuit live do not only live on the ice and snow,
but we are dependent on ice and snow for transportation and mobility and
therefore safety and food security," she explained.
"We can recall the hungry polar bear in Al Gore's
'Inconvenient Truth', but have we come to know the arctic wildlife better than
its people?" she wondered.
The Inuit had to overcome many challenges in the past
decades due to globalisation and forced assimilation by states. Displacement,
abuse by authorities and widespread alcoholism have affected the "spirit
of the Inuit", says Watt-Cloutier.
Despite these changes, the Inuit have held onto their
traditions, culture, land and ice to sustain and support themselves, which
provided a certain predictability.
"Not so today. Things are changing so quickly that the
only thing that we are reaching for is to get us back on that solid ground - or
should I say ice," Watt-Cloutier noted.
Ice and snow form the foundation of Inuit children's
education. "The land teaches our children the character skills required to
survive, such as patience, judgement, modesty, reflectivity and courage,"
she said.
The same sense of urgency was brought to the audience by
another community activist, Contance Okollet, from a village in northeast
Uganda that has faced both unexpected droughts and destructive rains over the
past three years.
Okollet was appalled by the increasing unpredictability of
the weather. In times of flood, such as in 2007, "We would suffer from
cholera, malaria, diarrhoea and food insecurity." Children were not able
to get to school or did not feel well enough to attend, she said.
In times of drought, "We were hungry and dependent on
aid, which is humiliating." This was something the women of Osukura
Subcounty had not experienced before, Okollet said.
She came all the way to New York to share her story and
"make a big tick for Copenhagen", Okollet told IPS, referring to the
major U.N.-sponsored climate conference taking place in the Danish city in
December.
In Papua New Guinea, more specifically the Carteret Islands
that were once six and now seven since one island has broken into two smaller
ones because of the rising waters, Ursula Rakova says she now paddles her canoe
in what used to be her garden. "But we do not want to be called refugees.
We are a proud people," Rakova says.
She formed a local NGO called "Sailing the Waves on Our
Own" that has raised funds for relocation and the construction of new
houses. The government of Bougainville has not been of any help, nor have the
visits by 17 international media groups to the islands the past three years,
she complained.
Rakova said she is here to speak with her "three
sisters with one voice to address our common fate".
Linking gender to climate change is something relatively
new, said Ulamila Kurai Wragg, a journalist from the Cook Islands.
Wragg emphasised the importance of women's leadership in
climate change adaption and mitigation because of their "long-term vision
and deep involvement in civil society movements".
Climate change once was just an environmental concern. Now,
scientists, economists and diplomats all have a stake in climate change.
But the four climate "sisters" from all corners of
the world showed that the debate still lacks a human face: the involvement of
the people who are most affected by climate change themselves.
As one of the few female heads of state attending the
summit, Halonen from Finland said that helping women to survive in their
everyday lives promotes the overall goal of sustainable development.
"We need to ensure full and active participation of
women in the making and in the implementation of the new deal," she said.
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