WUNRN
CALL FOR SIGNATURES
Send Endorsements to:
APWLD NGO on the
Roster in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the
United Nations
Rural and Indigenous Women’s Statement on
Climate Change
A
Submission to the Parties
to the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change
We,
rural and indigenous women from Asia, the Pacific and other parts of the world,
face enormous threats and damage to our lives and rights as a consequence of
climate change including the unbridled manner by which measures are being
proposed and undertaken to adapt to and mitigate this phenomenon and its
impacts. As women farmers, fisherfolk, herders, farm workers, indigenous food
producers and natural resource managers, we rely heavily on primary resources,
which are being negatively affected and destroyed by climate change.
We
assert our important roles in and contributions to the effective, appropriate,
integrated and sustainable use of land, biodiversity and natural resources that
have enabled the survival of generations of people for many millennia through
our traditional knowledge.
We
are
concerned that rural and
indigenous women are being affected more severely and are more at risk during
all phases of natural disasters and extreme weather events including the
post-disaster reconstruction processes mainly due to prevailing discrimination
based on gender, caste and ethnic identities.
We
believe that climate change is a result of the historical and unsustainable
exploitation and concentration of access to global natural resources by the
northern countries and transnational corporations (TNCs)
in the name of development.
We
recognise that the intense levels of production for trade and speculation
purposes, which have been sustained and
amplified by the globalisation system – free market chauvinism facilitated by
the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and international and regional financial
institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB)
and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), have led to the relentless exploitation
and exhaustion of natural resources, destruction of forest and water sources in
developing countries resulting in more carbon emissions. All these have
occurred at the cost of the already marginalised rural and indigenous
communities.
We
are alarmed by the fact that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC) recognises states’ “common but differentiated responsibility”
as one of its principles, yet industrialised countries are reluctant to fulfil
their obligation to cut emissions at source while their commitments are not
sufficient to curb climate change and its impacts.
We
are wary of false solutions which have been used to address climate change,
natural resource management and other environmental issues. We believe that the
market-based mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol, such as emission trading, clean
development mechanism, and joint implementation, are not enough
to make a dent in addressing the
real cause of climate crisis while
threatening to undermine rural and indigenous women’s roles and contributions
to sustainable livelihoods, ecological health and human security including food
sovereignty.
We
take the position based on our experiences that biofuels, large scale
hydro-electric power and nuclear power are not clean, safe, or sustainable
alternative sources of energy. On the contrary, they increase threats and
damages to the environment and to the lives and livelihood of rural and
indigenous women. Construction of large scale hydro-electric power dams and the
establishment of monocrop plantations
for biofuels have been causing destruction of forest, biodiversity
degradation, forced evictions,
displacement and landlessness of hundreds of thousands of rural and indigenous
women and their communities. The highly toxic chemicals used in these so-called
alternative sources of energy particularly affect women’s reproductive health.
We
are concerned about the financing instruments under the WB's Climate
Investment Funds (CIF). Loans add more burden to indebted and already
fragile economies of developing countries. This contradicts the principle
of “common but differentiated responsibility”. Developing countries are
instead, made to pay for the effects and impact of climate change caused
by industrialized countries. Further, the donor-beneficiary relationship the
CIF promotes erodes industrialised countries' obligations to emissions
reduction.
We
confirm that mitigation and adaptation measures detached from the context and
development aspirations of rural and indigenous women renege on commitments to
biodiversity and sustainable development, poverty reduction and human rights.
We believe that any long term solution to the escalating climate crisis should
acknowledge historical responsibility and ecological debt, be grounded on the
respect and protection of life and diversity, and promote and fulfill justice
and social equity between and within nations, peoples and sexes.
We
call on all countries which are Parties to the UNFCCC to be guided by and
adhere to the following principles in their “long-term comprehensive action” at
all levels:
1.
Respect, promote and integrate into all mechanisms, policies and action plans
on climate change the specific situation, right and needs of rural and indigenous
women as well as their critical role in and contribution to society, which is
recognised in various human rights frameworks including Article 14 of CEDAW,
Beijing Platform for Action and General Assembly Resolution 62/136.
2.
Recognise and protect the economic, social and cultural rights of rural and
indigenous women, specially their right to land, adequate housing and food to
eradicate poverty among rural and indigenous women.
3.
Ensure the recognition and protection of the particular rights of indigenous
women reiterated by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples to non-discrimination, collective ownership, traditional knowledge,
free, prior and informed consent and self-determination.
We
call on governments who are Parties to the UNFCCC to:
1.
Recognise and address the gender-differentiated impact of climate change on
women and especially the most
marginalised sector, rural and indigenous women.
1.1. Collect disaggregated data according
to sex and ethnicity and carry out gender analysis on the socio-economic impact
of climate change on rural and indigenous women on which all policies and
action plans to address climate change should be based.
1.2. Ensure policies and measures on
disaster risk management and reduction strategies, humanitarian assistance and
reconstruction processes are gender responsive.
1.3 Provide for the informed development
of appropriate disaster response and reconstruction strategies with full and
effective participation of rural and indigenous women in all stages and
processes of governance and decision making from design, planning,
implementation, monitoring and evaluation.
2.
Ensure and support the full and effective participation of women, especially rural
and indigenous women, in discussions, consultations and decision-making
processes on policies, action plans and laws with regards to climate change,
sustainable development and environment and natural resource management, which
have the effect on rural and indigenous women’s rights, lives and livelihood.
2.1. Create an enabling
environment for rural and indigenous women’s participation in consultations,
discussions and decision-making by providing
sufficient
information and adequate
technical and logistical support.
2.2. Recognise and address obstacles
which prevent rural and indigenous women from participating in decision-making
such as discrimination against them in socio-economic and cultural spheres.
2.3. Establish a permanent global civil society
consultative forum on climate change within the UN which should ensure
the full and effective participation of rural and indigenous women from
Asia, the Pacific, Africa and
2.4. Ensure that indigenous women are represented in the demand for an
Indigenous Peoples’ Advisory Body to the Conference of the Parties by the
International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change.
3.
Provide sufficient funds and technical assistance to rural and indigenous women
to build and strengthen their capacity to cope with climate change.
3.1 Ensure rural and indigenous women’s
access to information, technology and other resources to adapt to climate
change.
3.2. Promote and support genuine
sustainable development, sustainable natural resource management and
biodiversity-based ecological agriculture which empower rural and indigenous
women, transform the existing power structure into more equitable relationships
and realise people’s sovereignty and self-determination over natural
resources.
3.3. Ensure that funds be made available
directly to rural and indigenous women’s organisations and those representing rural and indigenous
women.
Asian
Rural Women’s Coalition (ARWC)
Asian
Peasant Women’s Network (APWN)
Asian
Indigenous Women’s Network (AIWN)
People’s
Action on Climate Change (PACC)
Signatories:
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