At the UN Climate Change Conference (COP18) in Doha, Decision 23/CP.18 on Promoting gender balance and improving the participation of women in UNFCCC negotiations and in the representation of Parties in bodies established pursuant to the Convention or the Kyoto Protocol was taken as a crucial reaffirmation of the importance of advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment in international climate change policy. It also requested Parties and observers to submit to the UNFCCC Secretariat their views on options and ways to enhance the goal of gender balance in bodies established under the Convention and the Kyoto Protocol in order to improve women’s participation and inform effective climate change policy that addresses the needs of women and men equally.
This submission by the Heinrich Böll Foundation Washington Office focuses on finance as a means of implementation of international climate policy and as a key to a new global climate agreement in 2015 and at current practices, challenges and key actions possible in addressing gender equality concerns in climate financing efforts and commitments under the UNFCCC. It argues that implementation of Decision 23/CP.18 will be incomplete without significant progress towards gender balance and gender-responsive climate finance policies and actions in these bodies. It singles out the Green Climate Fund, currently being operationalized as an implementing entity under the UNFCCC’s financial mechanism, in providing a unique opportunity to for the UNFCCC and the COP in showcasing early action and lasting success in implementing Decision 23/CP.18 in a transformative and paradigm shifting way by making the GCF the first finance body under the UNFCCC to start as a gender-responsive climate fund from the outset.
- Click here for the complete text of the submission by the Heinrich Böll Foundation (pdf, 6 pages)
- Click here to see submissions by Parties to the UNFCCC on Decision 23/CP.18
- Click here to see submissions of observer and international organizations to the UNFCCC on Decision 23/CP.18
© Victor Holt
2013
