Interview: Women are essential in the climate crisis – 06/05/2023 – Environment

It was with a mixture of disbelief and revolt that a group of about 90 women activists and philanthropists in the environmental area received the list of leaders highlighted by the United Kingdom to organize COP26, the UN climate conference held in 2021 in Scotland.

“There wasn’t a single woman,” recalls activist Bianca Pitt, one of the participants in the group in question, called Women of the Environment Network.

“We thought it would be enough to talk to the government, they would put together a team nominating some women and we could all go back to our normal activities.”

But the result was quite different. “To my great surprise, the authorities we talked to simply didn’t understand, they didn’t see any problem. Why? Because they weren’t women.”

It was in this vacuum of solutions that the She Changes Climate campaign was born. Founded by Pitt and other activists, the initiative highlights the urgency of including women in leadership positions on climate issues —an agenda that she herself, she admits, was not yet aware of the relevance.

“Growing up in Europe and being lucky enough to attend university, I believed I could do anything I set my mind to. I was simply not aware of the inequality women face across the planet, nor was I aware of the real causes of our climate crisis “, it says.

Immersed in studies “from the kitchens of our homes”, since the movement emerged during the pandemic, the activists were able to map several gaps. At the UN, for example, only five women have held the presidency of climate negotiations in the 27-year history of the COPs.

In addition, the Gender Action Plan, signed at COP25 in 2019, which sought to increase the number of women in the highest positions at the summits, has become a mere formality, according to Pitt.

“The rules were ratified, but after that basically nothing happened. We don’t have the power to force countries [a aplicá-lo].”

How did being a mother make you an activist? Motherhood was the first step of my journey 13 years ago. I took a leave of absence when my daughter was born, and that break from work gave me the opportunity to do reading in areas other than my immediate professional interests, which at the time were publishing and media.

The more I read and the more questions I asked, the more I began to realize that we were heading into a very, very difficult time for the planet.

So I decided not to go back into the media world and not set up my company, which was something I had wanted to do for quite some time at the time. Instead, I decided to really focus everything I have and can—my experience, my network, and my mind—into trying to create a different world.

I was very lucky to meet some people, and so I started to get involved with philanthropic institutions like Client Earth, which is one of the leading non-profit environmental law firms in the world. Also, I met a new group of people who had similar ideas and ambitions to mine. Together, we were able to set up new networks, such as the Women of the Environment Network, and finally, we created the She Changes Climate campaign.

Why is gender equity in leadership positions key to tackling the climate crisis? The more we researched, the more we realized that indeed women can make a huge difference when they are nominated to debate the climate.

Countries with more women parliamentarians have better climate policies and lower emissions. The same goes for company boards. Companies with more women on the board have better and better implemented climate policies. They are more likely, for example, to disclose data on carbon emissions.

Interestingly, even if we look at the individual purchasing patterns of men and women, according to a Swedish study, women are more likely to choose products and services with low emissions. For example, they are more likely to spend holidays at home or in their own country than abroad.

They are more likely to use public transport. When they do drive, they usually have smaller cars. They tend to consume more vegetables than meat, and so on.

I am very happy for you, in Brazil, to have Marina Silva as Minister of the Environment. She is an excellent choice and is, in fact, the female voice we need to hear in international climate negotiations as well. Why do I say this? If we only have one type of person debating public policy and its implementation, obviously decisions will be made within a bubble.

We are talking about people in leadership positions and with decision-making power. We are not talking about assistants, alternates or whoever else is part of the delegation or the broader COP leadership team. We are saying that we women need to be among the top negotiators.

Women make up 50% of the world’s population. It’s not just a matter of fairness and equality: it’s smarter to have them on the team, and we need to be aware of how they are being excluded.

What is the scope of She Changes Climate’s work and what are the current priorities? When we started two years ago, we thought it would only be a three-month campaign, until we realized not only the magnitude of the problem, but also that the exclusion we are dealing with is responsible for the climate crisis.

A permanent presence is needed to defend parity at the top of international climate negotiations. I’m sure every country is capable of identifying at least one strong negotiator who is a woman.

In addition, we are calling for the inclusion and empowerment of women in other places, such as on company boards.

And we are also highlighting the women who work on the front line of environmental defense. Brazil has a fantastic group of indigenous women who work in defense of the Amazon.

We know that these women are often persecuted. They are killed, in the worst case, or have to leave their homes and their children and flee. This is something we definitely need to change.

Could having a woman at the head of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change at the UN) make a difference? Brazil, for example, is proposing the name of scientist Thelma Krug. Undoubtedly. Unfortunately, we are finding the gender gap widening, which is a catastrophe. Why do I say this? Because in times of crisis, wars and emergencies, and of course, as the climate crisis worsens, the situation will deteriorate, and it will become increasingly difficult for women to assume leadership roles.

During the pandemic, for example, women were more likely to lose their jobs and less likely to return to work, which is a clear example of this interconnection between environmental, social and economic systems.

Indigenous leader Célia Xakriabá [deputada federal pelo PSOL-MG] was cited among the women who would change the climate in 2022, according to She Changes Climate. She could comment on the diversity of profiles of women in the list?We don’t pay enough attention to the Global South. Geopolitics has been completely dominated by the Global North. We have a huge task ahead of us in terms of offsetting damages around the world: we export our emissions and don’t take into account the externalities of our very, very harmful practices.

We have to include women who are at the forefront in every country and who work not just in politics but in communities.

We need to see more indigenous people especially. Brazil is very lucky to still have such an incredible group of biodiversity leaders that we need to talk to.

When we want to learn something from someone, we must look for the best in each field, and when it comes to biodiversity, indigenous peoples are the absolute best.

A Does She Changes Climate plan to go to COP28 (UN conference to be held in November in Dubai)? When I found out who the host was going to be, my “alarm” went off. I thought about becoming a comedian and starting talking about climate negotiations alongside the oil pump.

But if we don’t go to these climate talks, we leave all the space for the fossil fuel industry. We have to be there to show that we matter. We cannot breathe oil. We can’t drink oil. Oil will not guarantee our survival on this planet.

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Bianca Pitt

An activist, she is one of the co-founders of the She Changes Climate campaign. She is on the board of several philanthropic entities, such as ClientEarth, The Environmental Funders Network and The Sustainable Angle. Together with her husband, she finances the Chair in Environmental Sustainability at Insead, one of the world’s leading business schools. She lives with her family on a farm in West Sussex (England), where she maintains a regenerative agriculture project.

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UNDERSTAND THE SERIES

Planeta em Transe is a series of reports and interviews with new actors and experts on climate change in Brazil and worldwide. This special coverage also accompanied responses to the climate crisis in the 2022 elections and at COP27 (UN conference held in November in Egypt). The project is supported by the Open Society Foundations.