Centring gender equality at 2024 conferences on biodiversity, climate change, and desertification
Women and girls around the world are key actors in the push for a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, making their voices heard and actions felt as activists, policymakers, and political leaders.
In 2024, three major United Nations Conferences of the Parties (COPs) convene in a single year, marking a pivotal opportunity to advance the global environmental agenda: COP16 on biodiversity in Colombia, COP29 on climate change in Azerbaijan, and COP16 on desertification in Saudi Arabia.
🌍 In every corner of the planet, women are protecting our land and biodiversity.
— UN Women (@UN_Women) October 30, 2024
At #COP16 and every day, let's put women at the center of environmental solutions to build a more sustainable future for all. 🌱
Read more: https://t.co/cW5iIKkllI pic.twitter.com/3316uanRM9
In the lead-up to the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, these events offer a chance to address how the triple planetary crisis disproportionately impacts women and girls globally – and how achieving gender equality and environmental and climate sustainability go hand in hand.
UN Women is working to ensure that this year’s COPs deliver an inclusive and equitable agenda that not only tackles environmental issues but also strengthens the resilience and empowerment of women and girls as key drivers of environmental action and sustainable development.
As countries look to transition their economies away from fossil fuel extraction and other harmful environmental practices, UN Women will support negotiations to ensure that the benefits of these changes are fairly distributed, ensuring transitions that promote gender equality and prioritize the rights of women and girls.
One particular area of concern is the status of women environmental human rights defenders, who face significant risks advocating for environmental and climate justice and the protection and rights of nature. These defenders, often working in Indigenous and rural communities, are disproportionately affected by intersecting forms of discrimination, including on the basis of gender, race, ethnicity, income, location, and disability status, as well as gender-based violence, intimidation, threats, reprisals, and killings.
additional women and girls may be pushed into extreme poverty and 236 more into food insecurity by 2050, under a worst-case climate scenario
women and girls died prematurely from exposure to household air pollution in 2019
of climate-mitigation development assistance included gender equality goals in 2022
Data source: Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals: The gender snapshot 2024
From 21 October to 1 November, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (UNCBD) COP16 will be held in Cali, Colombia. UN Women will call for intensifying efforts to achieve a world at peace with nature, tackling gender inequalities and ensuring women’s and girls’ full, meaningful, and equal participation and leadership in biodiversity conservation.
From 11 to 24 November, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) COP29 will be held in Baku, Azerbaijan. UN Women will press on the need for gender-responsive just transitions away from dependence on fossil fuels, work to ensure that women and girls are included in climate adaptation and mitigation plans and programmes, and press for gender-responsive climate finance. COP29’s Gender Day will take place on 21 November, and feature a high-level event on gender equality, transparency, and accountability.
And from 2 to 13 December, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) COP16 will be held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. There, UN Women will advocate for women’s land rights as key to gender-responsive responses to droughts and land degradation.
Read UN Women's briefs about promoting gender equality and women’s livelihoods, rights and resilience at UNFCCC COP29, and about gender equality at the intersection of climate change, biodiversity loss, and land degradation at UNCBD COP16 and at UNCCD COP16. Also, read UN Women's working paper on "Advancing Gender-responsive Synergies Across the Rio Conventions."
At all three conferences, UN Women will work to integrate gender equality considerations in negotiations and decisions, and ensure that women’s and girls’ rights shape all policies and programmes on biodiversity, climate change, and desertification.
