For me, COPs have surprisingly started to represent HOPE, and COP27 in 2022 was the ultimate test. I had not attended a COP in person since 2019, and so much had happened in those few years – the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ukraine invasion and related fossil fuel crisis, global inflation and my own personal...
At the annual UN Climate Conference (COP), there are always more applications to attend than there are passes. FAWCO believes in the active participation of our youth. For COP27, we gave one of our available passes to Alice Finno, a student at John Cabot University, who attended the second week of the conference. The...
There were so many CSW66 side events and NGO CSW66 Forum parallel events, no one could possibly have seen them all in real time. Here are a few events I found particularly interesting.
Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) Press Conference
Feminist groups disappointed by lack of commitment to Climate Justice at CSW66
Watch the session here. (1 hr...
The closing session of CSW66 happened late on Friday, March 25. As so often, the negotiations lasted until past 9 PM New York time, but finally, the Member States reconvened to adopt the outcome document by consensus. German Ambassador Antje Leendertse, the witty and resourceful facilitator of the negotiations, made a brief report. She called the Agreed Conclusions a “historic...
I attended the UN Women briefing for civil society on March 15 so that I could virtually “meet” Ambassador Mathu Joyini, Permanent Representative of South Africa to the United Nations and Chair of the 66th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW66). Ambassador Joyini assumed her role as Ambassador in...
On Tuesday, March 22, UN Women held a Civil Society Briefing with the facilitator for the Agreed Conclusions, Ambassador of Germany to the UN Antje Leendertse. Ambassador Leendertse said there is an optimistic and constructive spirit in the negotiations. She told us (not direct quotes, but closely following the transcription of the briefing):
CSW66 is the first time the Commission...