By Stacey Kimmig, UN Rep (AIWC Cologne)
As SB50 draws to a close, a lot of important issues still remain unresolved. Final meetings will be held today, to try and reach some sort of consensus on the final issues; we will know more this afternoon about how much has been achieved. The Women and Gender Constituency (WGC) will give a 2 minute intervention in the final session, thanking parties for their efforts in the meetings, as well as highlighting where we see room for improvement in future talks. As many WGC members have already left, and these final meetings tend to run long into the evening, I will be helping to draft this final intervention, practicing the timing with the member who will read the intervention (no longer than 2 minutes!), and staying to cheer her on and take pictures of her delivering our statement.
Overall, the meetings have been fruitful, but also frustrating, as Saudi Arabia looks to stall discussions on recognizing the scientific report from the IPCC, which predicts that we only have 10 years to dramatically improve our efforts to curb emissions, or we will not reach our goal of keeping warming to below 1.5°C. Without recognizing the current science behind the climate change issue, on what should countries base their new pledges? As one country stated, “Saying that the science is not definitive enough does not excuse inaction.” In any case, the science will always be inexact when you are predicting the future.
Yesterday, the incoming Presidency of the next COP met with parties and other stakeholders to introduce their vision for the next COP to be held in Chile. Fortunately, the Chilean Presidency wants to have gender as a main focus during the next COP. Caroline Schmidt, the President of Cop 25 said, “I am convinced that gender must be included in every single issue. We can’t discuss among women in a separate room. We need to consider gender in every single issue. Women are not only the most impacted by climate change, we also need to have women participate in the decision making. We will also be using the platform for Indigenous People to include them during the COP 25. We hope to have Indigenous Peoples presence in the Chilean pavilion as well.” This was a very promising start to the next COP Presidency!
Overall, the talks ended on a sour note, with the IPCC report on 1.5°C being blocked from negotiations, but I am hopeful that countries still realize the urgency of the situation and continue to raise ambitions regardless. With the current heatwave, one cannot ignore that our “house (truly) is on fire” (Greta Thunberg).