BONN, GERMANY (June 11, 2013)—  In a space often dominated by technical discussion, where elevating the dialogue on social equity and gender equality is often challenging and ad-hoc, in Doha, it was encouraging to see Parties investing time and space to engage in a critical dialogue on gender equality and ultimately, finding consensus on Decision 23/CP.18 “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”.  Behind this decision, are theories that greater gender balance- beyond being a step towards gender equality- should lead to more gender-sensitive climate policy- but in practice, is there a real a correlation?

Initiated by LIFE eV / genanet, and co-hosted by GGCA and WEDO, the June 11th side event “Gender innovation: strategies to address “gender” in climate change policy” initiated a discussion to strengthen  awareness of different gender concepts, challenge policies and rhetoric which reinforce gender sterotypes, and think about when gender-sensitive climate policy looks like. The event discussed strategies/ language to trigger the transformation of society– to mitigate climate change as well as to achieve gender equality.

The program (English) can be downloaded from here are.

The presentations and a preliminary summary report of the event that has really triggered a new debate on gender concepts in climate discourse, can be downloaded (all in English) here:

Introduction by Ulrike Roehr LIFE

The (In) Visibility of Gender in Scandinavian Climate Change Policy Making , Dr. Lily Gunnhildur Magnusdottir, Malmö University

Gender stereotypes in (international) climate change policies , Emilia Reyes, Equidad de Genero and Bridget Burns, WEDO

The social construction of climate change Dr. Sybille Bauriedl, University of Kassel

Letter minutes by Sandra Baethge

Letter minutes by Sandra Baethge

Photos of the discussion is available here