GGCA Gender and Climate Change Training Manual - Women's ...

Over the longer term, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC, 2001) estimates that emissions reductions of more than 60% will be
necessary to stabilize GHG concentrations at year 2001 levels. This will require
a substantial “decarbonization”, including carbon capture and storage, of the
global economy and a significant transformation of the systems used to produce
and distribute energy, manufacture goods and enable transportation.
152
Other responses to the challenges of climate change are present
in other international fora. For example the 15 th session of the Commission on
Sustainable Development (CSD), which concluded on May 2007, focused on
progress in energy for sustainable development, industrial development, air
pollution/atmosphere and climate change. The Chairman’s summary (CSD,
2007) stressed the need to provide energy for all; promote energy efficiency;
strengthen the development, use and transfer of cleaner energy technologies;
and promote international cooperation on climate change, including through
both mitigation and adaptation. The summary also noted “the importance
of mainstreaming gender considerations, in particular the role of women in
management and decision making, at all levels, was seen as necessary for
implementation of the interlinked issues of energy for sustainable development,
industrial development, air pollution/atmosphere and climate change”. 1
5.1 Gender and mitigation efforts: establishing the connections
In the context of climate change, mitigation is “an anthropogenic
intervention to reduce the sources of greenhouse gases or enhance their sinks”
(IPCC, 2001). It is focused on limiting net emissions so as to slow and eventually
reverse the rise in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases.
There are certain areas in which mitigation actions are being proposed
or undertaken, where women have proven over the years (and in some cases
centuries) to be crucial players. Such is the case with conservation of forests and
reforestation, management of local resources, consumption and energy, among
others. In these proposed intervention areas for climate change mitigation,
what has been lacking is awareness, recognition and acknowledgement of the
role and input that rural and urban women from developed and developing
countries have had and are having.
While there has already been some exploration of the links between
adaptation to climate change and gender equality, the gender aspects of
1
15 th session of the CSD, Chairman’s Summary, Point 8.