WMC Climate

Where the Women Environmentalists Are at the UN General Assembly

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If you’ve ever been in New York City during the September convening of the UN General Assembly, you know that there are alt-events ringing the Secretariat throughout Midtown’s tony East Side. Everything from corruption to global health to sustainable agriculture — any human rights issue you can think of usually has at least one panel, if not a dozen.

This year, the theme of the UNGA session is basically Covid recovery, but also climate change. Specifically, the theme for the 76th session is worded as “Building Resilience through hope to recover from COVID-19, rebuild sustainably, respond to the needs of the planet, respect the rights of people, and revitalize the United Nations.”

One side event that has caught our eye at WMC Climate is a multi-day forum put together by WECAN — the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network, an environmental advocacy organization.

As women work to be heard as leaders of the global fight against the climate crisis, they are simultaneously suffering the combined consequences of gender inequality, economic disparity, colonialism and environmental injustice, to name just a few challenges. But, as WECAN is highlighting from Sept. 25-30, in order to “accelerate a path forward, we need to have collective coherence to address the protection and defense of human rights and nature, and uphold community-led solutions.”

To that end, dozens of international experts will speak on panels about everything from the gendered and racial impacts of the U.S. fossil fuel industry to feminist frameworks for global climate justice, each day from 1 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Eastern.

The incredible thing about assembly’s side events every year — particularly those involving race and gender — is the international diversity of speakers, if not always views. The WECAN sessions this year feature speakers from indigenous communities and grassroots efforts across the world, from Bhutan to Mozambique.

A few of their events that stand out:

  • No Greenwashing: Rejecting False Solutions to the Climate Crisis
  • A conversation with conservationist Jane Goodall
  • Media Visibility of Women's Climate Leadership
  • Rematriating The Land: Indigenous Sovereignty and the Land Back Movement

While little, if any, concrete action tends to come out of UNGA side events, they can be important gathering places for women's efforts and ideas that otherwise struggle to get the attention of media and governments. Action plans are created, working papers are written and partnerships are formed. It’s worth (virtually) attending some of these panels if only because they will get you up to date in the lead-up to what is being hailed by activists as “the most important climate negotiations since the Paris Climate Agreement,” the UN Climate Talks in Glasgow, in the first two weeks of November.

See the full schedule for the WECAN forum here.



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Lauren Wolfe
Journalist, editor WMC Climate
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