GL and AWC make their mark at COP17

From 28 November to 9 December, a team of journalists from Gender Links and the African Woman and Child Feature Service (AWCFS) attended the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 7th Session of the COP serving as the Meeting of the Parties (CMP7) to the Kyoto Protocol. The meeting happened in Durban and activists, ministers, researchers, youth, Heads of State and faith based organisations attended the meeting.

High on the agenda of this meeting were two main issues. One, the first commitment to the Kyoto Protocol is expiring in December 2012 and the Durban meeting discussed the possibility of a second commitment to start in January 2013. The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement linked to the UNFCCC. It sets binding targets for 37 industrialised countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions .These amount to an average of five per cent against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012.

The difference between the Protocol and the Convention is that while the Convention encouraged industrialised countries to stabilise GHG emissions, the Protocol commits them to do so. To a large extent, developed countries are responsible for the current high levels of GHG emissions in the atmosphere as a result of more than 150 years of industrial activity. The Protocol thus demands developed nations to reduce their GHG emissions (http://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/items/2830.php).

Second, there were discussions around a Green Climate Fund (GCF) that should be “established as an operating entity of the financial mechanism of the Convention to support projects, programme, policies and other activities in developing countries related to mitigation including REDD-plus, adaptation, capacity-building, technology development and transfer” (http://www.climatefund.info/). If agreed at COP 17 in Durban, the fund will assist the developing countries to implement mitigation and adaptation to climate change projects.

Through the GMDC, GL and AWC produced a daily e-newsletter highlighting a vast range of issues on gender and climate change from COP 17, opinion and commentary pieces on the Sixteen Days of Activism as well as “I” stories from the GL’s project on “healing through the power of the pen.” The team of journalists attended various meetings and joined in the protests against climate change. To view the daily e-newsletters, click here