CHAPTER 3: OUTLOOK FOR A SUSTAINABLE AND JUST FUTURE – FROM BUSINESS-AS-USUAL TOWARDS TRANSFORMATIONAL CHANGE


Box 3.1: Environmental violence against indigenous women


Indigenous women from the International Indian Treaty Council, Indigenous Women’s Environmental and Reproductive Health Initiative and the Alaska Community Action on Toxics have invoked human rights principles that should be implemented with respect to their exposure to environmental contamination. In 2012 this coalition submitted an extensive report to an expert group of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues on Combating Violence Against Indigenous Women and Girls at UN headquarters in New York. They described the disproportionate and often devastating impacts of environmental contamination on indigenous women as “environmental violence” for which States and corporations should be held accountable. The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (UN CERD) has recognized the obligation of States to implement, promote and monitor the enjoyment of their rights; to implement effective solutions, remedies and mechanisms in conjunction with indigenous peoples; and to monitor the human rights impacts of the corporations which they license. Source: USHRnetwork (2012)


Evidence from the Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) of the Organisation for Economic Co- operation and Development (OECD) reveals that lower levels of discrimination against women are linked to better outcomes in families, including in educational attainment, child health and food security (OECD 2014a). Where women have a more equal status in the family, children are more likely to complete primary school; and where they have greater control over their own bodies, child health outcomes also improve. Countries with the greatest restrictions on women’s physical integrity (e.g. where there are high levels of violence against women, and where women lack the power to make choices about their sexual and reproductive lives) have an average infant mortality rate more than three times that in countries with low levels of such restrictions (OECD 2014a). Men who live in more gender-equal societies have a better quality of life than those in less gender-equal ones (Holter 2014).


Repeated analyses have demonstrated a strong positive correlation between higher GDP and greater gender equality (World Economic Forum 2015; OECD 2014a). At business and corporate levels, too, numerous studies have found that companies with the most diverse leadership have higher financial returns, more transparency and more stable governance (World Economic Forum 2015; Queensland Government 2009; McKinsey & Company 2008). Gender equality in formal governance systems brings about positive environmental outcomes: evidence suggests that countries with higher parliamentary representation of women are more likely to ratify environmental agreements and to set aside protected land areas (UNDP 2014).


Incorporation of gender into environmental policies: Since


the UN Conference on Environment and


Development (UNCED) in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro gender aspects have received more attention in several international environmental policies. As a consequence of assiduous advocacy, analytical and political work by women’s groups, gender now appears to have obtained a firm purchase in several platforms, such as the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) (Box 3.3).


In the recent history of climate change Conference of the Parties (COP) meetings, several delegations from different regional groupings have played crucial roles in advocating gender approaches. For example, an informal gender working group of delegates has gathered since COP20 in Lima, Peru, and within the EU a Gender Expert Team has been active. Before and during COP21 in 2015 three specific groups of Parties – the Independent Association of Latin America and the Caribbean (AILAC), the Environmental Integrity Group, and the African Group – alongside a dozen individual countries indicated their support for including gender considerations in the objectives and operative part of the Paris Agreement (not just in the Preamble).


In many UNEP and sustainable development negotiations the Women’s Major Group (since 1992) and the Women and Gender Constituency of the UNFCCC (since 2009) have played important roles in bringing gender analysis to the forefront, along with the voices, needs and visions of women.


Many national-level climate action plans promote the integration of gender aspects in national climate change policies. Cambodia’s (Box 3.4), for example, has a particularly well-developed gender component.


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