10 December 2015
COP21: Leading Greens pledge to support the Women’s Global Call for Climate Justice
8 December 2015
As the Paris climate talks continue, leading Green politicians have endorsed the Women’s Global Call for Climate Justice campaign [1].
Green politicians including Caroline Lucas, Green MP for Brighton Pavilion, and Natalie Bennett, Green Party Leader, have signed the pledge that indicates that signatories will campaign for system change not climate change, work to ensure gender equality and human rights in all climate actions, fight to keep fossil fuels in the ground and motivate for a transition to safe and renewable energy.
The Green Party has pledged as an organisation to support the campaign which has the full support of Amelia Womack, Deputy Leader, Baroness Jenny Jones, Pippa Bartolotti, Leader of the Wales Green Party, Sian Berry, the Green Party’s London Mayoral candidate and Green MEPs Jean Lambertand Molly Scott Cato.
Caroline Lucas, the Green MP for Brighton Pavilion has tabled an Early Day Motion acknowledging that women will be “central” in the battle against clime change and finding “solutions that produce meaningful and just action at local, regional, national and global levels” [2].
Lucas said:
“Women are likely to bear the brunt of the negative consequences of climate change, yet continue to be chronically underrepresented decision making processes.
“I’m proud to support and highlight the Women’s Global Call for Climate Justice in the UK parliament. We should be embedding gender equality and human rights in all climate actions and in the Paris Protocol.
“In future negotiations we must be aiming for 50% of delegates to be women, and for the unequal impacts of climate change to be at the forefront of people’s minds in the decisions they make.”
Natalie Bennett, Green Party Leader, said:
"The Women's Global Call for Climate Justice is an important campaign, which highlights both the particular impact of climate change on women and their role as political actors in preventing it.
"With 70% of the world's food produced by small farmers, the majority of whom are women, with women as parents and individuals particularly vulnerable in environmental disasters, whilst also facing the challenge of feeding their households in a world where two billion people already receive insufficient nutrients, climate change is very much a women's issue.
"Women remain under-represented in the climate talks in Paris, but around the world in campaigning groups and non-government organisations they are a critical force. The 'gender and women' day at the Paris talks acknowledges all of those facts, while its existence marks the need for far more progress in these areas."
Baroness Jones AM said:
“Climate change is a major issue for women and it’s vital that close to half of the delegates at the conference in Morocco next year and beyond be women.
“I hope that many of the young women and girls watching this conference are inspired by the women delegates attending and that this encourages them to take a stand against climate change in their schools and communities.”
Lambert, Green MEP for London, said:
"Women and girls will suffer disproportionately from any agreement that blocks out their voices, or dismisses their lives as secondary in some way. Women are half the global population. It is vital that leaders at COP21 in Paris listen to women's concerns and are inspired by their leadership, at every level of decision making on climate change."
Scott Cato, Green MEP for the South-West, said:
“So often the discussion of solutions to climate change is framed in terms of technology and finance whereas we need to think a lot more about changing whole social and economic systems. As a Green economist I am keen that more women get involved in the fight to make sure that climate change does not become another route to oppress the majority of the world's citizens and I would encourage women to find out more about climate finance as part of our shared struggle for climate justice.”
Bartolotti said:
“The education and empowerment of women across the world is vital if we are to change farming practices, conserve energy, and plan for a low carbon future. In Wales, where we already face abandonment of many of our communities to the rising seas, we know that developed countries must cast aside their reservations about helping those with lesser resources, for the common good. And we ask that they do this in good heart, with generosity, and in double quick time. Bringing more women from poorer countries to the negotiation tables will help achieve this.”
Signatories “are gravely concerned about the lack of just and sufficient action on climate change by the world’s leaders” and commit to “lobby, hold vigils, protest, blockade, and barricade. We will take action in the smallest villages, the largest cities, the highest mountains, in the oceans, and at the UN Climate Conference in Paris, France.”
ENDS
Notes:
1. http://womenclimatejustice.org
2. http://www.parliament.uk/edm/2015-16/827
3. To sign the pledge and take action read more here: http://womenclimatejustice.org/share-an-action/
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