Gender Mainstreaming and EU Climate Change Policy Gill Allwood, Nottingham Trent University
EP Debate on Women and Climate Change, 20 April 2012 This report represents a heroic attempt to link two of this parliament's main obsessions: women s rights and climate change. But sadly it fails to do so British UKIP MEP, Roger Helmer
Global warming is not some male plot to do women down. The climate is the same for males and females, so far as I know. When it rains we all get wet. British Conservative MEP, Marina Yannakoudakis, Member of the women's rights committee, BBC News 19 April 2012
So what has gender got to do with climate change? Vulnerability Mitigation Adaptation
EU climate change policy Situated in a broader international context, where gender has only just begun to appear (UNFCCC 1992 was gender blind). Emerged out of EU environment policy, again, largely gender blind. DG CLIMA was created in 2010, but climate change cuts across other policy issue areas, involving Transport, Energy, Environment, Development, Home (for climate migrants) and the EEAS. The EP, Council of Ministers and member states all play important roles.
DG Climate Action has prioritised carbon markets, especially the ETS, and technological developments, such as Carbon Capture and Storage. The main focus has been mitigation. Only recently has adaptation within the EU been added. In contrast, adaptation has been at the centre of policy which focuses on climate change and development. PCD appears inverted development policy is being used to achieve the EU s climate change targets, as we can see in the case of biofuels.
Gender mainstreaming and EU policy Like all EU policies, climate action is supposed to be gender mainstreamed (link) As MacRae and Weiner say in the introduction to the forthcoming special issue of EIoP, we should be able to look anywhere in EU policymaking and see GM in practice. We don t.
It is hoped that it will not be necessary to justify the importance of gender mainstreaming field by field. Nicole Kiil-Nielson, in her explanatory statement as Rapporteur for the European Parliament s Report on Women and Climate Change, 2012
Research Questions How has gender mainstreaming been sidelined in EU climate change policy? How do we explain the persistent invisibility of gender in this area of EU policy? What formal and informal rules, norms and practices mean that gender mainstreaming has been ignored, resisted or sidestepped?
Methodology I use feminist institutionalism as a theoretical framework to help explain how gender mainstreaming has been sidelined in EU climate change policy. Analysis of EU climate change policy documents from 2003-2013. Analysis of NGO documents from the same period. Fourteen semi-structured interviews conducted in May 2011 and October-December 2012.
Findings The absence of gender is striking and comprehensive. References to gender, gender equality or women are almost entirely absent prior to 2012, and often absent after 2012. Officials refer frequently to other people who are doing gender mainstreaming. The policy documents analysed rarely construct climate change as something which concerns people and which is best addressed with the participation of these people.
A rare exception to this can be found in the Council Conclusions on Climate Change and Development 2009: the Council underlines the human dimension of climate change, including a gender perspective, and that poor people are most at risk, and that their resilience to climate change needs to be strengthened. The Conclusions follow the Joint Paper on climate change and development produced by the Swedish Presidency and the Commission in 2009.
European Parliament Resolutions Resolution of 29 September 2011 on developing a common EU position ahead of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20). Resolution of 20 April 2012 on Women and Climate Change. Resolution of 11 September 2012 on the Role of Women in the Green Economy.
European Institute of Gender Equality Report on Gender and Climate Change emphasises the importance of the numerical representation of women in climate change decision making: When the dominant focus of a gender equality issue is on increasing women s numerical representation, there is a risk of depoliticising the issue by suggesting that gender equality is a matter of achieving target figures, rather than transforming power relations between men and women. Lombardo, Meier and Verloo (2009: 4)
There is no evidence of systematic gender mainstreaming in climate change policy, even after 2012. For example, Resolution of 25 October 2012 on the EU 2011 Report on Policy Coherence for Development confines gender equality to a separate section.
Knowledge about, understanding of, and commitment to gender equality range from very patchy and reliant on constant references to others who are pushing this agenda (DG Justice, individuals - typically Ashton, Hedegaard) to well informed and driven. There is an assumption amongst the least well informed that much is being done elsewhere, that everything is in hand. Amongst the most well informed, there are concerns about the lack of resources to implement properly. More human resources, more training are seen as solutions. Two interviewees cited gender mainstreaming as an obstacle to gender equality, demonstrating the extent to which it has drifted from its initial meaning and purpose to become a bureaucratic box-ticking exercise.
Conclusion This study shows that EU climate change policy making institutions are gendered. It shows that even a new institution, such as gender mainstreaming, and new discourse, such as gender equality, are unable to challenge the hegemonic masculinity of these institutions. It also argues (in keeping with Annica Kronsell s findings on gender and climate change) that, on its own, increasing the number of women in decision making will not bring about change.