What if women were in charge of cutting carbon?

Caleb Klaces writes: In December this year representatives from 192 countries will meet in Copenhagen for the 15th UN Conference of the Parties (COP15) to discuss international targets for the reduction of CO2 emissions. The roughly 1,500 delegates will mostly be men, as they always have been. During the period 1996–2006 (COP 2–COP 13) the share of women in COP delegations increased slightly (from 20.5 to 28%), while the percentage of female heads of delegation dropped, from 13.5 to 12% (UN Commission on the status of women, 2008).

Caleb Klaces writes: In December this year representatives from 192 countries will meet in Copenhagen for the 15th UN Conference of the Parties (COP15) to discuss international targets for the reduction of CO₂ emissions. The roughly 1,500 delegates will mostly be men, as they always have been. During the period 1996–2006 (COP 2–COP 13) the share of women in COP delegations increased slightly (from 20.5 to 28%), while the percentage of female heads of delegation dropped, from 13.5 to 12% (UN Commission on the status of women, 2008).

A new report from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), with too many partners to list, argues that there is a ‘causal interrelationship between climate change and gender’ as such: ‘(1) climate change tends to exacerbate existing gender inequalities; (2) gender inequalities lead women to face larger negative impacts’. Approximately 70% of those who live on less than a dollar each day are women, many of them in areas acutely vulnerable to the effects of climate change. The argument goes that because of their gender-defined roles, these and other women are in general more vulnerable to climate impacts, which in turn could make things even more skewed in favour of men.

So women are at a disadvantage in their ability to influence policy on climate change, and in the severity of its effects.

Putting aside the question of how that inequality might and should change, I wondered if there was any evidence that we would have greater cause for hope for stronger emissions reduction targets – targets that might give us a better than 50% chance of not passing the crucial 2C rise in global temperatures – if most of the COP15 delegates were women?

An unscientific survey for this blog, looking at the gender of leaders of countries with strong environmental legislation, draws no firm correlation between green policies and women heads of state. That is partly because it’s a small and eclectic groups of countries: arguably the UK (David Milliband pushed through the impressive Climate Change Bill), Germany (female Chancellor), Sweden (male Prime Minister), Iceland (male President, female Prime Minister), Costa Rica (male President) and the Maldives (male President). Around the same ratio (30%) as the women in delegations at COP13.

A better source is DEFRA’s 2008 Framework for Pro-Environmental Behaviours’ which uses social research to divide the UK population into 7 segments according to their opinions towards environmental issues and then ability and willingness to act on them. Most of the segments are only very slightly more likely to be more male or female, but it is noteworthy that the groups more willing to accept responsibility for climate change were more also more likely (just) to be female. Also, the segment described as having "one of the most negative ecological worldviews" was 7% more likely to be male above average. This "honestly disengaged" segment is characterised by an indifference towards environmental issues and a belief that climate change is too far in the future to worry about.

It’s unlikely that any of the COP15 delegates will fit into the "honestly disengaged’"segment. More telling is what other studies show – that men tend to trust in technical solutions for energy-saving, while women tend to opt for behavioural or lifestyle changes (Gender CC). So a female-biased COP15 might believe that we can significantly reduce emissions right now through "soft"measures, like campaigns to change habits, rather than depending on a single future technological innovation.

Caleb Klaces is a poet,and founder and Editor-in-chief of www.likestarlings.com, a website which pairs up established and new poets to create new poetic conversations. He is a guest blogger at the RSA Arts & Ecology Blog, recently contributing this review of The End of The Line.