For the October 2023 episode of the IGC podcast, we were joined by Elise Buckle, Co-Founder of SHE Changes Climate and Geneva-based Gender Champion. She discusses the links between gender equality and climate change, the need for gender-responsive climate action, and priorities for the upcoming COP28.
TRANSCRIPT
Hannah Reinl
Hello and welcome to the October episode of our IGC podcast. My name is Hannah Reinl and I'm with the International Gender Champions Secretariat in Geneva. As the world gears up for COP 28, I am particularly happy to be joined today by Elise Buckle. Elise is a vocal advocate for climate justice and a globally recognized expert who has been working in the field of climate and sustainability for over 20 years. She is the co-founder of SHE Changes Climate, the CEO of Climate and Sustainability and board member of the Climate Action Accelerator and the IISB Sustainability Council. Elise has become an International Gender Champion in early 2023 and has since been instrumental in driving the creation of an IGC climate impact group in Geneva. Welcome Elise!
Elise Buckle
Thank you, welcome everyone.
Hannah Reinl
So Elise, the topic of today's episode is “Gender and climate change: unveiling the intersections”. Can you explain to us how the topics of gender and climate change are interlinked and why it is that we need gender-responsive approaches to address the unique challenges that women and marginalized communities as a whole are facing in the context of climate change?
Elise Buckle
So, we're facing a planetary emergency today and it's a crisis for climate, people and nature, and indeed women and girls in particular, are affected by this crisis. We know, that they are 14 times more likely to die in climate disasters. This is something we have seen, for example, in Pakistan, when the country was hit by floods, the women were the ones staying behind to look after the elderly and the babies and they didn't have access to a cell phone, or sometimes they didn't even know how to swim. So, they are more affected and at the same time, if we invest in women, we know that women can become champions of resilience. When women have access to information, to finance and decision-making power, they can build more resilient communities. This is at the grassroot level. Now if we look at the big picture in climate negotiations, we do represent more than 50% of the world population, yet actually we've been underrepresented in climate negotiations. Since COP 1 in 1995, there has been only five women as COP Presidents in 28 years, and last year only 20% of heads of delegations were women. We do think that if we have 50% of women at the negotiations table, including at COP 28, we will be able to achieve better results. There are a lot of data and research showing that when we have men and women together, we achieve better results in politics, in climate negotiations, but also in companies and in local government.
Hannah Reinl
So, it seems that there is a big gap actually between the stake women hold in positive outcomes of climate negotiations and their ability to act within these negotiations, seeing how underrepresented they are. So, what specific policies or initiatives have you personally been involved in or advocated for that promote gender responsive climate action? Can you maybe share some examples of successful outcomes or positive impacts that resulted from your efforts?
Elise Buckle
Yes, I will actually share one that is from my work as a policy advisor to Ambassador Khan when she was the chief negotiator of the COP 23 Presidency for Fiji. It was really inspiring to see how she could really make a difference by leading with empathy, by listening deeply to all the stakeholders. Together we worked on the Talanoa dialogue, which was a very inclusive and diverse dialogue, and by giving everyone a voice, we were able to get a COP decision on the 1.5-degree target and on raising climate ambition, even if some countries initially were opposed to it. This was really the start of, let us say, my awakening to the importance of women leadership in the climate negotiations. And after that, when we started, SHE Changes Climate with Bianca Pitt and Antoinette Vermilye, we focused on the COP 26 Presidency, because we saw that there were only men on the team and that the team in Glasgow was missing this diversity. Since then, there has been a lot of progress. It is not just thanks to SHE Changes Climate. Obviously, it' many partners together, we have been pushing for the same message, which is 50-50 balance for the COP Presidency, but also at all levels of decision making. With a lot of pressure through media and social media, we see that already in Egypt last year at COP 27, Minister Fouad, she was the Minister of Environment was given a lot more credit and visibility. And this year in the UAE we see there are more women who are on the pre-COP picture from this morning and are three very powerful women I would like to support; Hana ALHashimi, the chief negotiator, Razan AL Mubarak, the high level champion and Shamma AL Mazrui who is the youth champion for the COP Presidency. So, there has been some change, now what we would like to see, is to see this change in a more systemic way. So, this is why we are inviting government delegations and non-state actors to endorse the 50-50 pledge and to support this inclusion and diversity principles, because if all the delegations do that, there will be a domino effect and a lot of positive results for everyone.
Hannah Reinl
Great! You just shared that SHE Changes Climate was founded or started out at COP 26. We are now approaching COP 28, which will start at the end of November. What do you personally see as the main areas for action and improvement beyond the women's participation piece? and which outcomes do you hope to see from the summit?
Elise Buckle
So, this COP is going to be very challenging. Honestly, we all know this is going to be probably one of the largest COPs ever, I think the UAE is expecting more than 40,000 participants, but it's also one of the most controversial COP because Sultan Al Jaber, who is the COP president, is also the CEO of ADNOC, which is an oil company. So, we've been really asking for restoring environmental integrity by having a firewall between the COP Presidency and the fossil fuel industry. And this is quite a big challenge, there is some progress, thanks to the UNFCCC in terms of transparency and who's participating and on which delegation before last year in Egypt, they were actually people from the fossil fuel industry who were on the Egyptian delegation and influencing the negotiation inside the room. So, there is a great need for restoring the environmental integrity of the process, and obviously because of what is happening around the world, we see that there is a lot of fragmentation. Peace and climate are very much linked, and right now there is a lot. There are many conflicts around the world, so this COP will be about climate, but it will also be about the multilateral system, and it is a test for the United Nations, for all the countries around the world. Are we willing to reunite? Around climate action, are we ready to build bridges of peace and understanding and compassion and love? You know, are we ready to work as one team for one planet, going beyond these boundaries of egos and logos and institutional boundaries? And so, this is quite a big test and we don't know yet what the outcome will be, but I think it's actually much more than climate. It is really about our capacity to work as humanity.
Hannah Reinl
What do you hope to see with regard to the Climate-Gender nexus coming out of this COP?
Elise Buckle
So, gender will be on the agenda, for everyone to know, there is already a work program, the “Lima work Program” on gender, which was adopted a long time ago and by all parties, but there's been very little progress on it. The first thing we would like to see, is that this work program has to be implemented. This includes food, the 50-50 pledge, which we have been circulating and these very important principles of inclusion and diversity. So, what we'd love to see beyond the COP decision that that is going to come out , is the willingness for everyone to make space for women to be at the table of negotiations. It's good news that we have this global stock take process being Co-chaired by Barbara Creecy, she is the Minister of Environment of South Africa and Mr. Jorgensen from Denmark, so we have the north-south balance and a man and a woman co-chairing this facilitative process. And so, we are hoping that for every negotiation strike, there will be a man and a woman, ideally North and South, for the balance. This is also about walking the talk, it's not only about writing a COP decision, it's about the debate and who actually the power and the voice at the table, including during the last night of COP 28, which is when everything is being decided.
Hannah Reinl
Great, Thank you! And then just one last question, if you had to share one piece of advice with your fellow Gender Champions and how they could promote gender equality and environmental protection hand in hand, what would that look like?
Elise Buckle
I think on gender equality, it's really this idea of shared leadership, and share leadership is about men and women working together because, we're complementary and so, walking the talk. You know, if you are the CEO of a company, where you can have a Co-CEO who is a woman, if you are leading a team, always having this tandem, I think is very powerful. Supporting women and trying to appoint women for important positions. And on the environment, I think that is what I shared before, it is trying to nurture the seeds of collaboration and really trying to remind ourselves that we are the earth. You know, we are all born on this beautiful planet earth, this is also where we will return. And so, we really have to protect this earth, because we are part of it, all of us. And so, really trying to go beyond the North and South divide, beyond the social divides, beyond the national boundaries, and looking at environmental protection as something that is our life, I mean everything we do, the air we breathe, the food we eat, everything comes from nature. So yes, reminding ourselves why the earth is so important for our day-to-day life.
Hannah Reinl
I could not think of any better words to close this Podcast. Elise, thank you so much for joining us today, for sharing why we need and how we can think gender equality and climate action together. Thank you.
Elise Buckle
Thank you, Hannah!