We Have a Problem: Just 7 of the 110 Leaders at COP27 were women

It’s been about a month since the United Nations climate conference began in Egypt. Called COP27, the annual forum was a chance to address an increasingly clear red alert for our planet. But part of addressing the physical changes to the climate includes the consideration of who global warming is affecting most, where, and how. That means looking at economic, racial, and gender disparities globally, and tackling them one by one. And a post-mortem look at representation at the conference reveals abysmal discrepancies.

Women composed less than 34 percent of the negotiating teams from all countries, despite being one of the most affected groups from climate change in the world. In a photo of all the world leaders at the summit, only seven of the 110 leaders were women. Seven.

And while there has been an increased presence of women overall at the yearly UN climate conference — a rise in both presence and participation at high levels, according to WEDO, a women’s environmental rights organization based in New York, this year’s conference was a far cry from the highest level, which was 40 percent participation in 2018.

At the 2011 meeting, countries had pledged to increase the participation of women, the BBC reported.

As for the overall increase in participation over the years, WEDO writes: “This long-term progress can be attributed to various factors: the adoption of decisions promoting women’s participation in climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts at the UNFCCC [the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change], the implementation of gender quotas and the introduction of climate change and gender plans at the national level, as well as the introduction of initiatives by civil society to enhance women’s leadership in climate change negotiations.”

However, in recent years, the organization found that “that progress is inconsistent and, in some areas, stalled.”

Interestingly, WEDO found that as of 2019, the most gender-balanced COP delegations were from both expected and unexpected places: Denmark and Norway, among the expected, but also Peru, Mongolia, and Botswana. BBC found that North America, Europe, and island nations had the highest female representation at COP27, while African and Middle Eastern countries tended to lean more male.

Representation matters in all spheres, but particularly on the international political stage — and especially on issues that affect women and people of color the most. Hana Brixi, the global director for gender at the World Bank, told the BBC that “there is increasing evidence that having women participating improves the outcomes in global negotiations like COP27.”

Sophie Rigg, a senior climate advisor at ActionAid, a South Africa-based group that works globally to attain gender justice, told the BBC: “There is no getting around when women are in the room, they create solutions that are proven to be more sustainable.”

Even the creators behind the conference agree that there is a serious problem of under-representation of women. “Successful examples of integrating gender in climate policies remain rare,” said Juan C. Monterrey, vice chair of the conference’s committee on implementation.

With women often the most important actors in the developing world in terms of corralling entire communities toward more sustainable farming and health practices, their severe underrepresentation in climate negotiations remains the biggest missed opportunity in fixing the climate crisis.

“It’s no longer about greenhouse gasses, it’s about the world we are leaving for our children,” said Ko Barrett, vice chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change at the United Nations. “Women play an incredible role in bringing that perspective to the conversation.”