WEBINAR | 16 March 2022 | 14:00 – 15:30 Rome | 9:00 – 10:30 New York
Feminist Climate Action and the Rule of Law
Women and girls are key to strengthening climate resilience. They are at the forefront of climate action. However, their role as agents of change continues to be underutilized. They remain underrepresented in crucial decision-making roles at local, national, and global levels.
This is particularly important as the impacts of climate change are not gender neutral. Women and girls continue to be differently and, in many cases, disproportionately impacted by climate change due to existing socio-economic structures and unequal access to rights and resources. Furthermore, the lack of data on the gendered impacts of climate change renders women and their needs invisible to policy makers and leads to gender-blind climate solutions.
Initiatives targeted at enhancing climate action have largely focused on developing technological solutions aimed at mitigating and adapting to the impacts of climate change. However, many of these solutions often fail to account for pre-existing inequalities, such as those based on gender, and thus, reinforce these areas of discrimination.
Feminist rule of law approaches to climate action provide a unique opportunity to transform legal and institutional climate-related processes, and enhance the ability of women and girls to claim their rights and participate in climate-related decision-making at all levels.
On this note, this side event seeks to shed light on the importance of the rule of law in achieving gender-responsive climate action. In particular, the event will focus on the following questions:
- What climate justice gaps and challenges do women and girls face?
- How can the rule of law enhance climate justice for women? How can legal frameworks and justice institutions strengthen feminist climate action?
- What gender-transformative approaches do we have to empower women and increase climate resilience?
The event builds on IDLO’s commitments to the Generation Equality Action Coalition on Feminist Action for Climate Justice and will be informed, among others, by IDLO's Policy Brief on Climate Justice for Women and Girls: A Rule of Law Approach to Feminist Climate Action (2022) and Policy Brief on Climate Justice: A Rule of Law Approach for Transformative Climate Action (2021).
Organizers
Side event organized by IDLO with the support of the Permanent Mission of Italy to the United Nations, the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Maldives to the United Nations and the Permanent Mission of the Republic of the Philippines to the United Nations and in partnership with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), American Bar Association (ABA) and Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) on the occasion of the 66th session of the Commission on the Status of Women.
Agenda
Opening Remarks
- Ms. Jan Beagle, Director-General, IDLO
- H.E. Abdulla Shahid, President of the UN General Assembly, and former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Maldives
- Mr. Stefano Stefanile, Deputy Permanent Representative of Italy to the United Nations in New York
- Dr. Fermin D. Adriano, Undersecretary for Policy, Planning, and Research, Department of Agriculture, Philippines
Panelists
- Ms. Deborah Enix-Ross, President – Elect, ABA
- Ms. Katherine Meighan, Associate Vice-President & General Counsel, IFAD
- Ms. Sara Omi, President, Mesoamerican Coordination of Territorial Women Leaders
- Dr. Claudia Ringler, Deputy Director of Environment and Production Technology Division, International Food Policy Research Institute
- Dr. Omaira Bolaños, Director, Latin America and Gender Justice Programs, RRI
Moderator
- Dr. Ilaria Bottigliero, Director, Policy, Research and Learning, IDLO
Interactive Dialogue
Details
Simultaneous interpretation will be provided in English, French and Spanish.
For questions or to contact IDLO's Gender Team, please send an email to skafka@idlo.int
Photo credit: © UN Women/Ryan Brown