Feminist Demands @ CSW66 for a Gender-Transformative Agenda for Climate & Environmental Action
African feminists and environmental activists continue to express their disappointment in the failure of the multilateral system to address the climate crisis in a just, inclusive and sustainable. African women and girls have been disproportionately discriminated against in the quest for climate justice, yet they suffer the most. To this end, African women and girls have suffered two crises; unfavorable weather conditions caused by the climate crisis and then being denied opportunities to be present to speak out in global decision making spaces.
The 66th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW66) conversations and negotiations around the interlinkages between gender equality and climate change, environment, and disaster risk reduction, should not be held without the meaningful presence of African women and girls in all their diversity. Following the COP26, which is remembered as the most exclusionary climate summit ever, CSW66 provides an opportunity for African women and girls to unpack and reflect on the unfulfilled promises of COP26. Their voices and priorities exhibited in the #AfricaDisruptCW66 lay the foundations for more concerted action that needs to be prioritized ahead of the COP27 in November 2022. In seeking to leverage on CSW66, FEMNET in partnership with Women’s Environment & Development Organization (WEDO), Fos Feminista and Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) pit together seven (7) demands toward a gender-transformative agenda for climate and environmental action.
- Recognize and redress loss and damage—the immediate and unequal climate-related destruction that has is occurring beyond any attempts at adaptation—centering the most marginalized people and communities.
- Commit to ending the sovereign debt crisis to ensure fiscal space for climate action and gender equality.
- Dismantle false solutions to climate change, particularly the emphasis on net zero and nature-based solutions in the climate and biodiversity arenas.
- Advance a just and equitable energy transition, shifting from a fossil-fuel based economy to a low-carbon and renewable energy system that upholds women’s human rights and advances social and environmental justice.
- Fulfill historical obligations to provide gender-just climate finance that is predictable, adequate, transparent, accountable, and in the form of grants rather than loans.
- Espouse a human rights-based approach to climate action that includes the full range of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR).
- Guarantee equitable participation of women and girls in all their diversity in climate change policy process and programming, including at the country level.
