WUNRN
GenderCC
– Women for Climate Justice is the global network of women and gender activists and
experts from all world regions working for gender and climate justice.
"In
particular cross-cutting issues such as the linkages between Gender and Climate
Change have widely been ignored."
Still lack of ambition and knowledge gaps in climate change negotiations.
People-centred research needed
As the meeting of the UNFCCC Convention subsidiary bodies is reaching its end,
it becomes obvious that there hasn’t been much progress in reaching an
agreement within this year. Though the talks started in a more trustful
atmosphere than in Copenhagen, with many delegations affirming their will to
negotiate seriously, the most important questions haven’t been tackled yet.
Moreover, negotiations are still led too much by national interests rather than
by global needs, and by emotions rather than rational approaches based on
science.
This is aggravated by the fact that researchers have been looking more into
physical aspects of climate change than into social and political issues.
In particular cross-cutting issues such as the linkages between Gender and Climate Change have widely been ignored.
However, in a number of areas relevant to climate change, there is strong
evidence for a gender dimension that needs to be taken into consideration, in
particular in regards to vulnerability and adaptation, as well as to attitudes
and contributions towards solutions.
“Still, a vicious cycle hampers the exploration of these dimensions in
mainstream research: as long as researchers do not look at gender aspects, they
will not find them, and gender aspects will continue to be concealed”,
formulates Gotelind Alber from GenderCC one of the findings of a symposium
which took place back to back to the negotiations. GenderCC – Women for Climate
Justice together with BRIDGE, GDN, Bread for the World, EED and LIFE invited
climate change and development researchers, practitioners and experts to
discuss existing research gaps, and develop recommendations for further
research. Participants emphasized that research clearly should respond to the
needs of communities on the ground, and empowering men and women to participate
in decision-making and implementation. This implies people-centred and
participatory methodologies. More research is also needed to enable the
development of gender sensitive policies, programmes and measures in adaptation
as well as in mitigation. To move the issue forward, par-ticipants agreed upon
strengthening joint efforts and gathering information by building up a gender
and climate change research network.
“We don’t need research for the sake of research. But we urgently need more knowledge
to improve policy-making as well as activities on the ground”, concluded Maira
Zahur, a researcher in the field of Gender and Disaster.
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