Women’s Major Group activity in Paris at COP21

Members of the Women Major Group were active in Paris at COP21, working for a just and binding climate agreement and to make linkages to the SDGs and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. At the UNFCCC (climate talks), the official channel for civil society participation is via  the Women & Gender Constituency.

As WMG did during the Post-2015 IGNs, WGC members and advocates met in morning caucuses to strategize and then lobby governments for a truly ambitious and transformative agenda that addresses climate change and systematic inequalities. Read the key demands of the WGC for COP21, which are very much aligned with WMG positions, here. After two long and dramatic weeks, an agreement was adopted in Paris. It is not the strong, justice-focused climate agreement we wanted, but that doesn’t stop our work, it merely fuels us to do more. The WGC and WMG will continue to advocate for women’s human rights and the environment in all high level policy processes – and members will continue their on-ground and implementation work at all levels.

Outside of the negotiations themselves, the WMG was very active. In the public space next to the negotiations, called Climate Generations, the WGC hosted a large exhibition space where the WMG had a presence. Visitors could write on a banner to add to the ongoing hashtag conversation of #WhatWomenWant and our #FeministVision. WMG members led chants for women’s human rights and the environment, outreached to the public about the WMG and the new 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, and invited people to play a game to knock down systems of oppression such as patriarchy, environmental destruction, and illicit trade flows. Additionally the WMG co-sponsored a side event that looked at corporate plunder of the environment, where WMG organizing partner Isis Alvarez, made connections to the SDG process. Eleanor Blomstrom, another organizing partner of the WMG gave a speech to the French National Assembly about the importance of women to the ‪#‎COP21 climate negotiations by sharing experiences of how women were central to the passing of the Post-2015 Sustainable Development Agenda. Several members participated at the Rio Conventions Pavilion’s SDG-focused Gender Day on December 9th to highlight the WMG efforts in the process as well as projects on the ground.

Members of the WMG, including APWLD, Ibon International, ARROW, WECF,GFC, WEDO, AIWC, Feminist Task Force, WEP, and more, spoke, advocated and organized at multiple side events that brought stories from frontline communities responding to climate change, the importance of promoting gender equality and participation, and gender just solutions! WMG members also participated in civil society actions both inside the COP venue and outside on the streets of Paris to demand for system change, and not climate change!