This year’s International Women’s Day proclaims “Better the balance, better the world.”
But what’s the balance between women and men like in the forum responsible for deciding how the world tackles climate change?
As part of the European Capacity Building Initiative (ecbi), IIED trains officials from vulnerable developing countries to participate effectively in the UN climate negotiations.
Women and men experience the risks and burdens of climate change differently and thus must have equal footing in policy spaces. In our trainings, we strive for gender balance in the hope that women and men will have the same opportunity to shape international decisions about climate change.
So how are we doing?
The state of balance
First, some context. The UN climate negotiations have been running for 21 years – convening at least two sessions across the world per year. Since 2012, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has tracked the numbers of men and women participating in these negotiations.
The UNFCCC figures show that compared to other global decision-making bodies, its gender balance sits well ahead of national leadership. In 2017, 13% of heads of government and state were women (PDF). In that same year, of those leading country delegations to the UN climate negotiations, approximately 27% were women. Overall, women represented 37% of all the country delegates (PDF) present at the UNFCCC.
