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| Momentum for Change: Women for Results - Launch event [PHOTO: UNFCCC/CC BY 2.0] |
Doha: Together with the Rockefeller Foundation, the UN Climate Change
Secretariat has launched a new initiative to recognise the critical role of
women in fighting climate change: “Momentum for Change: Women for Results.”
The initiative will showcase activities to inform
governments, media and the public at large about the crucial role of women in
confronting the challenges of both adapting to climate change and curbing
emissions.
“Women have the power to make a major difference. They are
at the nexus between food, water and energy. This nexus is both the challenge
and the solution to climate change, and we need to ensure women’s leadership in
bringing about the solutions,” said UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana
Figueres.
Heather Grady, Vice President of the Rockefeller Foundation
pointed out that in Africa women are responsible for 80% of food production on
the continent, and therefore need to be more involved in decisions relating to
food security: “While climate change affects us all, it does not affect us all
equally. Women, though disproportionately affected, are crucial agents of
change.”
Mary Robinson of the Mary Robinson Foundation for Climate
Justice, the UN Development Programme’s Helen Clark, Laksmi Puri of UN Women
and ministers Terezya Huvisa from Tanzania and Mariyam Shakeela of the Maldives
attended the launch of the initiative in the context of the COP 18/CMP 8 in
Doha.
“We need a more people-centered and positive narrative on
climate change, and we need to build constituencies which demand that our
leaders take faster and wider action,” Mary Robinson said.
The “Women for Results” initiative is part of the wider
“Momentum for Change” initiative designed to highlight inspiring mitigation and
adaptation actions implemented by a wide range of stakeholders at regional,
national, or local level and which can encourage governments, businesses and
civil society to do more to combat climate change.
The first round of Momentum for Change: Women for Results
“lighthouse activities” will be showcased by the UN Climate Change Secretariat
at COP 19 in Poland next year. Applications will be accepted from 8 March 2013,
which is International Women’s Day.