Feminist climatic policies are the only resilient policies

"Repeat after me: Climate policies are too patriarchal."Climate Activist

SANDRA SOTELO REYES // With every decision we make now, we are forging our future and that of those who will come after, whether we take into account the existing opportunities and threats to address inequalities and suffering, or if we do not take measures. We are not “all in the same boat” when it comes to climate justice. There is no gender, class or ethnic neutrality when it comes to addressing sustainability and there will be no climate justice without a feminist and intersectional approach.

The latest United Nations Generation Equality Forum (GEF) brought together women's organizations, governments and the private sector to discuss the current state of gender equality. We are witnessing, for the umpteenth time, a review of the progress and achievements (or the lack thereof) in terms of gender justice and women's rights in relation to the milestones established in 1995 (Beijing+25). On this occasion, six thematic Coalitions for Action were created, focused on global feminist priorities: gender violence; justice and economic rights; autonomy over the body, rights and sexual and reproductive health; feminist action for climate justice; technology and innovation for gender equality; and feminist movements and leadership. The Action Coalitions will result in five-year action plans for each area. Tellingly, climate justice is among the top six global feminist priorities.

We see, once again, that feminism permeates daily human activity and responds to current challenges: how we produce and distribute resources, and how we relate to other people and ecosystems on which we depend.

We see, once again, that feminism permeates daily human activity and responds to current challenges: how we produce and distribute resources, and how we relate to other people and ecosystems on which we depend.

The climate crisis has helped us to better perceive the tremendous (and grotesque) gaps and discrimination that exist in terms of gender, race, class and socioeconomic structures, which undermine the lives of hundreds of millions of people in the name of capitalism who works for a minority. Feminist economist Amaia Pérez Orozco reflects on this conflict in her book Feminist Subversion of the Economy. Contributions to a debate on the capital-life conflict, which summarizes why climate activists and feminists coincide in denouncing a system that has instrumentalized and endangered both the natural world and people, especially those who are oppressed because of their gender, class, race or geography.

What can we expect from the world summits? When Pérez Orozco comments on the world meetings on the environment, the Conferences of the Parties (known by the acronym in English COP), he affirms that “this type of summits does not attack the root of the structural problems because that would mean really changing the relations of power. Those who are in charge of making decisions at these summits are not going to address the structural problems because that would put them in question. However, the difference in environmental summits is that they deal with problems that “are common to all humanity, both for those who do business and for those who see their lives exploited by those businesses. (...) That great global hegemonic power feels affected by the ecological collapse, since it attacks exactly what has been its mode of operation: cheap energy». And both natural resources and unpaid care work are prime examples of that cheap energy.

What can we expect from the world summits? When Pérez Orozco comments on the world meetings on the environment, the Conferences of the Parties (known by the acronym in English COP), he affirms that “this type of summits does not attack the root of the structural problems because that would mean really changing the relations of power. Those who are in charge of making decisions at these summits are not going to address the structural problems because that would put them in question. However, the difference in environmental summits is that they deal with problems that “are common to all humanity, both for those who do business and for those who see their lives exploited by those businesses. (...) That great global hegemonic power feels affected by the ecological collapse, since it attacks exactly what has been its mode of operation: cheap energy». And both natural resources and unpaid care work are prime examples of that cheap energy.

So far, in most gender and climate debates in global forums we see the focus being on women rather than gender and feminism; we see mitigation and adaptation measures instead of a radical transformation of the economic system, and we see debates about acceptable emission quotas instead of ways to deal with the existing political economy.

Women are also presented on the one hand as victims of environmental degradation who need to be rescued, and on the other as heroines leading initiatives to stop the destruction of nature. Simultaneously, they are attributed the care of the family and subsistence work, instrumentalizing discrimination based on gender as part of the "solution". Clearly, this essentialist rhetoric towards women –especially towards poor and racialized women from the global south– ignores the instrumentalist strategy hidden behind the intended link between women and nature, also excluding men from the latter and associating them more with culture. . Make no mistake: women are, indeed, the most affected by climate change and natural disasters, but their vulnerability is not innate, but the result of inequalities produced by social gender roles, racism, classism and patriarchy that translate into social norms, cultural practices and laws that are discriminatory, and that lead to poverty.

The absence of gender and power analysis, and of indicators differentiated by gender, age and other variables in most Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), and the fact that climate authorities validate such meager NDCs , gives an idea of ​​the patriarchal nature of climate policies.

NDCs are at the heart of the Paris Agreement: they are the post-2020 climate actions that each country commits to in order to reduce national emissions and adapt to the effects of climate change. Let us not be surprised not to find gender issues in the CRCs in such a patriarchal context. Countries must guarantee the integration of international political decisions regarding gender mainstreaming in adaptation to climate change, both in the design of their national policies and in the NDCs and in the National Adaptation Plans (PNAD). This will not be achieved without representative parity or without including the different voices affected. Currently, despite the existence of a plan to ensure the representation of women and girls in all their diversity, they are underrepresented at all levels and sectors of climate justice, from national to community planning, in the public sector and in climate finance and clean energy.

The fact that climate finance is inaccessible to feminist organizations, youth organizations and women's rights activists, is another indicator of the patriarchal context in which we live. At the recent Generation Equality Forum, the Coalition for Feminist Action for Climate Justice called for an increase by 2026 in the percentage of global public and private climate finance flows earmarked and invested in gender-just climate solutions, particularly at the community and rural level. This includes a 65% increase in the share of bilateral and multilateral climate finance going to gender equality.

The absence of gender and power analysis in national commitments, and the lack of access to climate finance for women's rights organizations impede the design of effective adaptive policies and, instead, contribute to maladaptive practices.

An interesting exercise that can be proposed to our most skeptical environment is to observe the NDCs from the perspective of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and evaluate, for example, how objective number 5 on gender equality is articulated in relation to with CDNs. It is disappointing to see how, of all the SDGs, the link between CDNs and goal 5 is the weakest. To address this, the capacity of millions of women and girls to build resilience to climate and disaster risks, mitigate climate change, and cope with loss and damage, among other measures, must be improved and empowered through cooperative models. community rights or guarantee land rights and security of tenure.

There are already some examples of funding initiatives that try to address the negative effects of patriarchal climate policies. Recently, the African Development Bank, through its African Fund for Climate Change, pointed to proposals in which climate resilience constitutes the driver of structural transformations in equitable governance models that are compatible with women's rights. Demonstrating an understanding of the intersection between climate justice and gender justice by some donors is critical to inspiring others and leading the way towards non-patriarchal approaches.

The feminist approach delves into the structural causes of inequality, studying the roles, responsibilities and how these are attributed to a given gender. It assesses the differentiated climate risks faced by women and men in all their diversity, transgender, non-binary and other identities, of all ages, sexualities, beliefs, classes and ethnicities. Based on this understanding, only feminist climate policies are resilient policies in the face of climate change.

Sandra Sotelo Reyes is a Gender Justice Adviser on Resilience and Climate Change at Oxfam.

* The opinions and recommendations expressed in this article are those of the author and may not be exactly those of Oxfam.

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COMMENTS

1. ArroyoClaro says:

   Ecologists in Acción de la Ribera: ALLEGES AGAINST PHARAONIC PROJECTS. That our territory was oversaturated with infrastructure It was already well known, since we have more airports, highways/highways, AVE, etc. per inhabitant than Germany itself, the leading European economic power. Arrived at such excesses, it seemed that our politicians (at least those of the Botanical, more honest than the previous ones) and big businessmen (long lined), after depleting the public coffers (the corrupt left a debt of €40,000 million) and destroy our territory, they finally let it rest. It was about time, we thought... But what's up! Speculators, big businessmen and opportunistic politicians, from Madrid and here, continue to be primed with large public works and do not stop even with the pandemic! This is how they have launched projects as unnecessary, expensive and destructive as the extensions of the V-21 , the bypass, the V-30, the V-31, the CV-60, the port of Valencia, the port of Sagunto, the port of Alicante, the Valencia-Castellón AVE, the through tunnel, etc. etc etc Projects that waste everyone's money (for the benefit of a few thugs) and on top of that destroy the territory and aggravate the climate emergency… now money is coming from Europe (which will put us in even more debt) and cunning speculators are planning hundreds of mega solar power plants all over the world the PV, which will devastate many km2 of fertile land and mountains with millions of photovoltaic panels. Each mega photovoltaic plant means nailing 500,000 panels on crop fields or Mediterranean mountains, eliminating all vegetation, crushing the living soil and saturating it with herbicides so that it does not neither grow nor grass under the plates. This is another ecological attack and cannot be consented to in any way, if they want to do business with the mega power plants that put them on highways/highways (where they can generate 4MW/km) or on their chalets and offices.https:// www.ecologistasenaccion.org/185538/al%c2%b7lega-contra-els-projectes-faraonics/

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