COP27 Media Briefing

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The Gender Agenda at COP27

About Women’s Environment & Development Organization (WEDO)

WEDO is a global women’s advocacy organization for a just world that promotes and protects human rights, gender equality, and the integrity of the environment. WEDO coordinates women’s rights caucuses in international policy spaces like the UNFCCC and advances feminist leadership and solutions towards the creation of a just and healthy planet for all.

About the Women & Gender Constituency (WGC)

WEDO helps convene the Women & Gender Constituency, one of the nine official civil society constituency groups under the UNFCCC. The WGC works to coordinate the views and demands of women’s rights, gender equality and feminist organizations within the UNFCCC process. WGC work is collective in nature and organized via a Facilitative (Steering) Committee.

34+

600+

Official Organizational Members

Individuals in Advocacy Network

�womengenderclimate.org

The Gender Agenda at COP27

• Snapshot: Gender Highlights�
• COP27 Agenda: What’s at Stake, Examples of our Demands�
• Key Events at COP27 �
• A History of Gender in the UNFCCC & What’s Happening at COP27�
• Key Resources, Experts & Spokespeople

Snapshot: Gender & COP27

• 600+ women & gender advocates have launched collective demands for climate justice at COP27. The demands are informed by regional demands from a coalition of more than 150 African women & girls from the WGC and beyond.�
• Loss and damage is high on the COP27 agenda. On October 24, nearly 150 US organizations sent a joint letter to Special Envoy for Climate John Kerry calling on the US government to address and advance loss and damage at COP27.�
• This year, there is a mid-term review of the Gender Action Plan under the UNFCCC, and the WGC has a related set of requests [see Slide 10].�
• Our SRHR & Climate Justice Coalition is planning to have an increased presence at COP27 (with a new website & resources forthcoming.)�
• During COP, the WGC will be honoring 3 awardees of our annual Gender Just Climate Solutions. (announcement of awardees forthcoming - Slide 13.)�

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COP27 Agenda Item: Mitigation

WGC DEMANDS:

The COP26 Glasgow Climate Pact acknowledges that limiting warming to 1.5˚C requires a 45% reduction in global CO2 emissions by 2030 relative to 2010 levels. Accordingly, the Pact agreed to establish a “work programme to urgently scale up mitigation ambition and implementation in this critical decade.”

• That developed countries commit to immediately halt all new investments in fossil fuels and nuclear energy, with a clear and urgent shift to a sustainable economy centering gender-responsive use of renewable energies.�
• That developed countries, particularly the European Union, pull out of the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) and stop its expansion to other countries. The treaty allows coal, oil, and gas corporations to the power to sue governments in secret tribunals and before commercial arbitrators.�
• A targeted, multi-dimensional approach to supporting the poorest and most vulnerable African, Small Island State, Latin American, and Asia Pacific communities through investments in safe and clean energy.

COP27 Agenda Item: Adaptation

WGC DEMANDS:

The Glasgow–Sharm el-Sheikh work programme on the global goal on adaptation (GlaSS) includes: a two-year work programme on the global goal on adaptation; enhanced action on adaptation and understanding the global goal; and four workshops per year. On 5 November (09:00 to 18:00) , the fourth workshop will take place on “Communicating & reporting on adaptation priorities.”

• Apply a social-justice framework and a human rights based approach to climate action that includes providing universal health coverage and universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) health services for women and girls and advance this into the UNFCCC framework for national climate change strategies, NDCs, adaptation plans, programs and budgeting.

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• Preservation of the oceans and coastal ecosystems (such as river deltas, estuaries, sand dunes, mangroves and coral reefs) by developing effective adaptation and mitigation measures to address harmful impacts of climate change and environmental pollution. �
• Advancement of the proportion of grants-based funding for adaptation.

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COP27 Agenda Item: Climate Finance

WGC DEMANDS:

At COP26, developed countries did not meet the USD 100 billion per year by 2020 goal. Now, a multi-year process has begun for all of the Parties under the UNFCCC to agree on a New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) that we are going to put actual numbers on beginning in 2025.

• African Feminists demand the provision of adequate, accessible, affordable, flexible, and human-rights- centered climate finance as a matter of justice and equity. �
• The creation of a dedicated, debt-free finance facility for loss and damage to urgently support developing countries currently dealing with multiple losses and damages caused by the climate crisis.�
• The scaling up of adaptation finance by prioritizing grants as opposed to loans. �
• New finance mechanisms to enhance direct access to finance for community, youth, feminist and women’s rights organizations and movements who adequately respond �to the needs of their communities.�

COP27 Agenda Item: Loss and Damage

WGC DEMANDS:

Under CMA Agenda item 8. (Matters related to finance) – at the proposal of Pakistan on behalf of G77 and China – “Matters relating to funding arrangements for addressing loss and damage” has been included in the provisional agenda for the first time.

• Recognize, redress and compensate for loss and damage—the immediate and unequal climate-related destruction that is occurring beyond any attempts at adaptation—centering the most marginalized people and communities.�
• Create a standalone finance facility to address loss and damage.�
• Publish a Loss and Damage Gap Report, similar to the Adaptation Gap or the Emissions Gap Report— with a strong gender focus.

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• Improve gender- and sex-disaggregated data collection and analysis around loss and damage, including by prioritizing collective efforts to map the disproportionate impacts and related needs of the climate crisis.

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COP27 Agenda Item: Gender Action Plan

WGC DEMANDS:

Parties will conduct a mid-term review of progress on the five-year gender action plan.�

Ensure the full and inclusive participation of women - in all their diversity - across all climate action and advance implementation of the gender action plan via its mid-term review. In assessing the mid-term progress, it is essential that the final outcomes at COP27 acknowledge current realities, including:�

• Taking into consideration lessons from the ongoing Covid pandemic and the ways in which it has exacerbated gender inequalities
• Responding to recommendations in the technical report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) on ensuring a gender-responsive just transition to a low carbon economy
• Recognizing the current impacts being faced by frontline communities, including women and girls, in the face of increasing loss and damage
• Responding to the essential role that women and girls, in all their diversity, play in the field of agriculture, particularly in promoting agroecological models, and the challenges faced in terms of access to and rights over land
• Acknowledging the lack of climate finance reaching grassroots and indigenous women and communities, as well as for work broadly on gender-responsive climate implementation at national and regional levels
• Ensuring coherence to broader global efforts to advance work at the intersection of gender and climate change

Crosscutting Demands

• Apply a social-justice framework and a human rights based approach to climate action that includes the full range of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR).

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• Dismantle false solutions to climate change—particularly the emphasis on net zero, carbon trading and offsets, and Nature-based Solutions (NbS)—in the climate and biodiversity arenas.

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• Invest in resilient, gender-transformative, climate justice education.�
• Ensure that private sector investments in mitigation and technology are not used as replacements for public investments.

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• Fulfill commitments to gender equality and ecosystem integrity via the full implementation and realization of sustainable development and biodiversity goals.

Women’s Participation & The Women Delegates Fund

LATEST DATA ON WOMEN’S PARTICIPATION

THE WOMEN DELEGATES FUND

Women’s equal participation in climate change decision-making is fundamental to just policies that reflect and respond to the needs of the global community.

The percentage of women across all national delegations rose from 30% for meetings in 2009 to 38% in 2021, a less than 10 percentage point increase despite greater policy. At this rate of change, gender parity in national COP delegations will not be achieved until 2040. �Read the latest report >>

Recognizing a need to support the participation and leadership of women in the UN climate negotiations, the Women Delegates Program (WDF) provides travel and capacity strengthening support to Party delegates, particularly from Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States, in order to participate in UNFCCC convened meetings and negotiations.

Gender-Just Climate Solutions

GJCS AWARDS AT COP27

THE GJCS SCALE FUND

Feminist solutions to the climate crisis exist throughout the world. These solutions have the potential to catalyze transformative change in our interactions with our environments and our communities—but they are under-recognized, under-valued, and under-supported.

Since 2015 and the establishment of the Paris Agreement, the Gender Just Climate Solutions Awards program aims at showcasing, amplifying and scaling gender-responsive transformative climate initiatives. The three most recent annual awardees will be showcased at COP27 during an event on 14 Nov. (Date TBD). Learn more >>

The Gender Just Climate Solutions Scale Fund (GJCS Scale Fund), launched in 2021, seeks to build on decades of feminist mobilizing for climate solutions to provide access to direct funding opportunities for scaling or replicating current programming as well as technical assistance to address institutional capacity. The Fund has now provided two rounds of direct funding as well as tailored technical support for select organizations, benefitting 14 organizations thus far.

Key Gender/WGC Events at COP27

Overview of Gender in the UNFCCC

Overview of Gender in the UNFCCC

Key Resources

Our Demands and Recommendations

• WGC Demands (coming soon)
• African Feminist Taskforce Demands
• Videos: African Feminist Demands for Leadership & Participation, Land Rights & Agroecology, and Women Human Rights Defenders.
• SRHR & Climate Factsheet (updated resource coming soon)

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Resources on the Gender Action Plan

• What you should know about the UNFCCC Gender Action Plan (GAP) and upcoming mid-term review
• WGC demands for GAP review

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The Gender Climate Tracker provides experts, decision-makers, negotiators and advocates on-the-go access to the latest information on research, decisions and actions related to gender and climate change.�

Visit genderclimatetracker.org

Or scan to download the App!

Featured Spokespeople: African Feminists

*Our full WGC spokesperson list includes gender advocates from around the world who are experts in diverse topics, including: women's and girls' leadership; energy transition, nature-based solutions, climate finance, loss and damage, forests and agriculture, and the intersections between climate and education, health, gender-based violence and peace and security.

For media inquiries:

Lindsay Bigda, WEDO: lindsay@wedo.org | +1 207-385-7924�(At COP27 4-15 November)�

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