Climate Change and Paying Lipservice to Women: What is the Role and Representation of Gender in the COP21 Negotiations?

Abstract

The gathering of global leaders to discuss climate change, known as COP21, in Paris in 2015 has been trumpeted as a success due to the high number of countries that have positively participated. COP21, or the Conference of Parties, is the governing body for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), an environmental treaty aiming to tackle the problems associated with greenhouse gases. However, there are post-COP21 reports suggesting that despite 123 out of 195 countries so far agreeing to a set of policies to curb climate change, many important elements of the conference were not given the platform promised to them, including gender issues. Indeed, there are significant voices that say gender was strategically marginalised. Yet, prior to Paris in 2015, the COP21 president, French foreign affairs minister Laurent Fabius, claimed gender would be central to the negotiations. This was an acknowledgement that the impacts of climate change are overall more disadvantageous to women and girls. The purpose of the research is to examine the scope and importance of gender in the negotiations through a review of documentation and qualitative content analysis of newspaper articles.