DOHA: The gender issue and its impact on climate change were addressed yesterday during a panel presided over by HE Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, on the sidelines of the UN conference talks taking place in Doha.
This session marked the end of a day dedicated to gender, with various boards focusing on this matter.
In the panel titled ‘Gender and Climate: Moving beyond the Rhetoric’, participants agreed that gender balance should be integrated in future Conferences of the Parties, giving Doha’s meeting another opportunity to be “historic”.
The session was hosted by the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Christiana Figueres, and it was the last of three events that approached gender balance in the climate change context.
During an interactive dialogue that developed into a lively discussion with much feedback of the audience, Sheikha Al Mayassa expressed how grateful she is that the UN decided to bring the climate change conference to Qatar.
“We meet on the aftermath of Sandy, and this drastic weather is not only part of our present, but part of our future. On this day we look at that future through the especial lense of women. Here in Qatar we already look at the world through especial lense, caught between Asia and Europe”, she added.
Sheikha Al Mayassa put gender in the perspective of her religion, “which is very much compatible with the modern way of life. I saw my father and mother build a nation in which my gender never stopped me. Every journey begins with one step in the right direction, this week, this month and for decades to come,” she stated.
On this basis, the former president of Ireland Mary Robinson, who took part in the panel as well, considered it “would enormously helpful if the especial lense of gender could be integrated into the COP. Doha would always be remembered for it”.
“Climate is not just about the science, it’s about making more people sensitive. If we can get the gender balance in all the sections of the COP it would make a great difference”, concluded Robinson.
From South Africa, Dr Nozipho Mxakato-Diseko considered that the Conference of the Parties and addressing climate change negotiations in particular is mainly a “masculine process”.
On the risk of stereotyping women by including the gender issue in climate talks, Mxakato-Diseko was clear: “women walk longer distances to get water and fire. As a woman who has fought so hard for emancipation, I want to be in a table where solutions for climate change are being addressed.”
Also part of the board, Julia Marton-Lefèvre, Director of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, said that in her organisation the gender office was set up in 2007, a circumstance that has helped bring more gender topics to UNFCCC.
Liberia’s Minister for Gender and Development, Julia Duncan, participated in the discussion as well.
Coming from a country where women are the main “breadwinners”, the Minister encouraged all participants in COP18 to take women’s empowerment to the next level and give more funding for agriculture.
Also a member of the panel, Nawal Al Hosany, Director of Sustainability, Masdar, encouraged women to “not shy away from responsibilities because they bring opportunities”.
The assistant secretary general of the World Meteorological Organisation Elena Manaenkova, invited attendees to “take this opportunity to really help the planet and give more information to women about climate”.
The Peninsula
