Climate change

In November 2011 and March 2012, Women'sNet has been following and training a group of community media journalists to use online tools for reporting on climate changes and gender issues issues in partnership with the Media Diversity Development Agency. We were at the Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Durban last November, you can see the results here.

The follow-up international meeting was held this week in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, and the subsequent negotiations towards an agreement is already attracting criticism from many actors of civil society. Zonibel Woods reports on RH Reality Check:

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Brazil, a country that in the past has championed women’s human rights, including reproductive rights, at the global level, has failed women in both Brazil and the world over.

During meetings to finalize the Rio+20 document, Heads of State will adopt in the next few days at Rio+20, delegates agreed on a plan short on vision and big on compromises. After three days of long, drawn-out negotiations, marked with lack of clarity about the process, a document to be signed off by heads of government was presented. Quickly gaveled through by the Brazilian chair, one after another government thanked Brazil for facilitating this document and largely expressed how this was the best they could do. By all accounts, despite the attempts to spin the outcome as a success, this document is neither “the future we want” nor what future generations deserve. In an effort to get consensus at whatever cost, Brazil forgot Rio: the vision and commitments of the Rio Earth Summit held 20 years ago.

Women’sNet and The Media Development & Diversity Agency are proud to present a meerting we are calling ‘The Johannesburg Agreement’, the second phase of a series of workshops to train women journalists from community media (Radio and TV) in the practice of online and mobile citizen journalism in the wake of the COP17 conference and the Climate Change phenomena. The first phase was held in Durban between 28 November and 9 December 2011, a series of activities were facilitated around the COP17 conference, with the aim of empowering women to produce information that offers an alternative to mainstream media coverage. Female journalists working for registered community and small commercial radio stations and television have been invited to participate in The Johannesburg Agreement.

The initiative was developed following the women and media and environment conference organised by the department of environmental affairs in August of 2011 to engage community media with regards to COP17. This conference came twelve years after the adoption of the Kyoto protocol, and was seen as critical milestone to getting parties to sign an agreement that will see lowering of carbon emissions in the world. Our interest as a collective was on telling the story of how climate change affects OUR communities, and in particular women who work on the land and depend on it for their families’ livelihood.

This blog provides an update on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) taking place in Bonn, Germany. 

Professionals in climate change-related fields are more likely to be male, highly educated, well-paid and not worried about losing their jobs, according to a new survey.

Kathleen Mogelgaard a Senior Program Manager of the Population and Climate Change Program says "there is no quick fix to overcoming climate change's sexist tendencies".

Africans - and especially African women - will suffer most from climate change. Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai intends to help them