The 2023 Conference of Parties (COP28) was hosted in the United Arab Emirates in Dubai from 30th November to 12th December.
WEDO had a delegation in Dubai to advocate for gender-just decisions and an overall vision of divesting from harm to invest in care; strengthen capacities and knowledge at the intersection of gender and climate; convene gender advocates and governments; and build truth when opportunities arises through direct action.
Mwanahamisi Singano speaking at COP28. Photo by Annabelle Avril/WECF
Dubbed the “GST COP,” COP28 focused on galvanizing political momentum towards the first ever Global Stocktake outcome of the Paris Agreement, as well as focusing on the phase-out of fossil fuels, the phase in of a just transition, and matters related to finance.
“While the power of the people has allowed us, after 30 years, to include the reference to transitioning out of fossil fuels in a COP outcome text, the fight is not over,” said Senior Global Policy Lead Mwanahamisi Singano. “The GST, in taking a step forward, also brings us backwards and opens the door to dangerous distractions such as carbon capture and storage, nuclear, and other false solutions and loopholes in the form of ‘transition fuels’ and net-zero approaches.”
With about 70,000 attendees, COP28 was the biggest climate summit ever. Hosted in the ‘Expo City’ venue, COP28 sadly attracted more exhibitions—and four times more fossil fuel lobbyists than last year’s COP, which had the most ever—an alarming trend that WEDO and other feminists have been vocal against.
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Learn more about WEDO’s COP28 delegation below:
As a co-convener of GEDA, WEDO supported the organization of the Global Conference on Gender and Environment Data from November 28-29. Learn more here.
On 4 December, WEDO held a Twitter Space to identify opportunities at COP28 to advance a gender just transition. Listen to the recording here.
WEDO hosted our longstanding Night School to support women negotiators’ full, equal and meaningful participation in the UNFCCC.
Over the course of almost four decades, the concept of a “just transition” has undergone a transformative journey. Rooted in the protection of workers’ rights, it has evolved into a broader movement advocating for systemic change.
WEDO recognizes the need to stand in solidarity with workers worldwide, in line with just transition’s original purpose of safeguarding workers’ rights, as well as to advocate for a vision of a gender just transition grounded in structural transformation. This call for a structural change is deeply rooted in feminist ideology and principles.
At COP, WEDO staff monitored the UNFCCC Just Transition Work Programme while also proactively advancing our vision of a gender just transition—one grounded in principles of shifting power, redistributing resources equitably, valuing paid care work, and providing dignified work for people of all genders.
Watch comments from Bridget Burns, representing the WGC during the first ministerial roundtable on just transition:
Bridget Burns speaks at a press conference during COP28. Photo by Annabelle Avril/WECF.
Press Conference: Financing a Gender Just Transition. Watch the recording here.
Twitter space on @UNClimateSummit account: What do feminists want from COP28? Analysis of financing a gender just transition. Listen to the recording here.
Annual Gender Just Climate Solutions Awards: ceremony and publication launch. Watch the recording here.
Alex Gordon speaking on climate finance at COP28. Photo by Annabelle Avril/WECF
A systemic and structural transformation of our global economic systems and climate finance flows is urgently required – to reach communities and countries on the frontlines of climate impacts, as well as to fund a gender just transition.
WEDO staff monitored progress towards the Loss and Damage Fund; New Collective Quantified Goal on Finance (NCQG); and the Green Climate Fund replenishment and direct access.
“We are very disappointed as feminists that we have not made any major strides here in pushing for financing for human-rights based, gender-transformative, locally-led climate action with simplified and direct access,” said WEDO Senior Program Manager Tara Daniel. “Very little money is accessible to and reaches people and communities on the forefront of climate change, including women and diverse gender groups in local communities. It will be even more important after the finance failures here at COP28 that the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) on climate finance to be approved at next year’s COP is responding to needs and the science and is negotiated throughout the year in a participatory and inclusive manner with the meaningful engagement and participation of women and diverse gender groups, Indigenous Peoples, and other groups historically marginalized and excluded.”
WEDO also used this opportunity to showcase feminist funding alternatives—such as the GJCS Scale Fund—to support grassroots solutions. A small delegation from the Feminist Action Nexus for Economic & Climate Justice was also on the ground at COP28, strengthening aware of feminist analysis around issues around trade, tax and debt.
03 DEC, 2:30-4:30, WGC Pavilion | Teach-in: Challenging Green Extractivism and Positing Feminist Alternatives
How can we take forward the debates at COP28 as part of our collective struggles for economic, climate, and gender justice? This participatory dialogue explored specific proposals on mobilizing climate finance, through tax justice and systemic analysis, as alternatives to dominant narratives of green extractivism. The incredible lineup of global majority feminists included Dr. Vinnitta Mosby, Indigenous activist and academic from the Torres Strait Islands; Patricia Wattimena, Program Coordinator for Environment and ESCR at ESCR-Net; Shereen Talaat, Director and co-founder, MENAFem Movement for Economic, Development and Ecological Justice; Mukupa Nsenduluka, Tax and Natural Resource Governance Lead at Tax Justice Network-Africa; and Triana Wardani, secretary-general of SERUNI (Serikat Perempuan Indonesia). This interactive session featured several speakers from the audience and was moderated by WEDO’s Katie Tobin.
06 DEC, 5pm, Barbados Pavilion | Event: Transforming the global financial architecture for enhancing gender equality
Organized by the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung and WEDO, this event offered feminist perspectives on transforming the global financial architecture to enable both climate justice and gender equality. Together with Tetet Lauron of RLS and Marisa Hutchinson of IWRAW-AP, Katie Tobin outlined how the global financial architecture both exacerbates gender inequalities and fails to truly address climate change. Engaging with the Barbados government’s leadership on both the Bridgetown Initiative and calling for climate finance through the lens of reparations, the discussion examined the apparatus of the UNFCCC as shaped by patriarchy, white supremacy, capitalism and colonialism.
Watch Katie’s intervention here.
The Gender and Environment Data Alliance (GEDA), co-convened by WEDO and IUCN, co-sponsored a Global Conference on Gender and Environment Data on November 28-29. Led by UN Women, UNFCCC, the COP28 Presidency and the UN High Level Climate Champions, the conference featured dialogues to unveil the existing gaps in gender and environment data, and shed light on both obstacles and possibilities to bridge these gaps.
“As co-conveners and co-founders of the Gender and Environment Data Alliance, WEDO is encouraged to see the growing recognition within the COP space and the broader climate justice ecosystem on the need to invest in — and use — gender-environment data,” said Senior Program Manager Katie Tobin. “GEDA was created out of the recognition that expanding the scope of who creates data and whose data counts is crucial for crafting equitable and evidence-based policies that consider the distinct realities of women, men, and people of all genders. Intersectional gender-environment data is fundamental for climate policies to tackle the root causes of gender inequality and shift power dynamics away from the global North and towards frontline communities, especially women.”
Katie Tobin of WEDO served as one of the MCs of the Global Conference on Gender and Environment Data. Photo by UN Women.
The Conference resulted in a call to action, with five key areas for increased priority and investment by governments, donors, and multi-stakeholder alliances (like GEDA!). Read more about the Conference here and watch the recordings from Day 1 and Day 2.
WEDO’s Gender Climate Tracker app & platform provides key info on gender mandates and women’s participation in the UNFCCC, and country profiles (including gender analyses of NDCs). The GCT provides:
Gender Mandates: Navigate all UNFCCC decisions that contain a reference to gender (and soon IPCC, CBD and CCD references as well);
Participation Statistics: The participation of women and men in UNFCCC Party delegations and constituted bodies;
Country Profiles: Key advocacy information, including NDC gender analyses and relevant news and resources; and
News & Resources: Relevant news and resources including NAP analyses and UNFCCC submissions.
As we look forward to the information on the final participants for COP28, our latest analysis on women’s participation statistics highlights the differences we see between smaller negotiation sessions—or “intersessionals”—and the much bigger Conference of Parties (COPs).
Katie Tobin at the GEDA Conversation Circle
03 DEC, 16.45 – 18:15, SE Room 7 | Side Event: Gender and Environment Data Alliance: Roots of Change.
This event offered space within the official COP28 program to spotlight national level data and evidence gathering, from GEDA members and their partners in the Pacific, Latin America, and West Africa. Elevating the value of lived experiences, and the importance of qualitative, community-generated data in addition to quantitative government data, the discussion featured several GEDA members working at national, regional, and global levels. Watch the recording here.
03 DEC, 18.30 – 19:30, WGC Pavilion | Conversation Circle: Gender & Environment Data.
This informal gathering was a space to build community among GEDA members (both founding and new), and to share strategies for engaging policy-makers on adaptation, resilience, and just transition–both within and beyond COP28.
Linking Climate Justice and Human Rights Demands with Calls for Cease-fire
As we continue to lift up the message that there’s no climate justice without human rights, WEDO staff joined activists to call out genocide and occupation—from the atrocities perpetrated on Palestine to those happening in Sudan and Congo, and in many regions around the world—and to demand a global cease-fire now and an end to occupation and settler colonialism.
At the High Level Segment, Ms. Fatma Ahmed of Sudan spoke on behalf of the Women and Gender Constituency (WGC). “First and foremost I speak to you as a woman from Sudan, a country full of beauty and history, a people with vast hopes and dreams whose lives matter, a country at war, a people facing genocide, women and girls facing deplorable sexual violence—and unacceptable levels of humanitarian crisis,” she said. “There is no climate justice in a militarized world!”
Calls for demilitarization were front and center at COP. “Why is there money for war, but never money for climate reparations?” said WEDO Program Manager Mara Dolan in a press conference on climate justice demands of the U.S.
MENA Feminists at COP28
The Women and Gender Constituency, co-convened by WEDO, was proud to support a delegation of frontline and grassroots leaders and feminist advocates from the MENA region to participate at COP28. Read the demands from the MENA Feminist Taskforce here.
Key Events:
01 DEC: MENA Feminists Day at the WGC Pavilion
02 DEC, 17:30-18:00, Zone B6 – Building 77 | Press conference (Room 2): MENA Women and Gender Taskforce Demands at COP28. Watch the recording here.
Women and Gender Pavilion
The Women and Gender Constituency hosted, for the first time, a Women and Gender Blue Zone Pavilion at COP28. It was a space for conspiring, sharing and breathing, learning and envisioning together, and amplifying impact. View the Pavilion Program here.
WGC Color Campaign
The Women and Gender Constituency’s carried out an in-person and online collective solidarity color campaign throughout COP28 to call attention to: MENA Feminists, Human Rights, Financing a Gender Just Transition, Feminist Fossil Free Future, Loss and Damage Funding, No False Solutions, and Indigenous Feminists.
Women Delegates Fund
WEDO has long recognized and advocated that women’s leadership and equal participation in climate change decision-making is fundamental to just policies that reflect and respond to the needs of the global community. Our commitment to advancing and supporting women’s participation through the Women Delegates Fund (WDF) continues this year, in partnership with the Governments of Canada, Scotland and Australia, providing support to an incredible cohort of women delegates.
The weekend before COP28, we hosted our traditional WDF “Night School” for these delegates to support preparation for the upcoming meeting and to facilitate a fully simulated negotiations session—building skills in drafting text, coordinating positions and building consensus.
SRHR and Climate Justice
As a co-convener of the SRHR and Climate Justice Coalition, WEDO highlighted the importance of gender equality and sexual and reproductive rights (SRHR) for climate justice—including in the context of the first thematic day on climate and health.
01 DEC, 15:15-16:30, WHO Pavilion | Event: “Tackling the maternal and reproductive health harms of fossil fuels and petrochemicals”
02 DEC, 15:00-18:00, WGC Pavilion | Teach-in: SRHR and Climate Justice Message Guide
03 DEC, 12-1:30pm, Civil Society Climate Justice Pavilion | Speaking Up for SRHR and Climate Justice
04 DEC, Side Event, SE Room 5, 1645-18:15 | “No Climate Justice Without Gender Equality and SRHR”
U.S. Advocacy
As part of its U.S. advocacy work and as a co-convener of the Feminist Green New Deal, WEDO amplified feminist perspectives on global climate justice, including demands of the U.S. Government.
02 DEC, 15:30-16:00, Zone B6 – Building 77 | Press Conference: Feminist Perspectives and Demands of the U.S.
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