Sonalini Sapra

Her trip to Copenhagen

I had gone to Copenhagen to attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference and see the ways in which feminists were lobbying to get their concerns into the negotiating text. However last-minute changes to the entry arrangements at the UN conference meant that I wasn't able to attend all the women's caucus meetings or other events inside the conference center. I did however spend a lot of time at Klimaforum, which was a parallel "People's Climate Summit" that was taking place in central Copenhagen. I attended panels on gender mainstreaming and climate change, as well as talks by women speakers from India and Nigeria who spoke about the devastating social and economic impacts that climate change was having on their local communities. I also had an opportunity to see women from a Latin American feminist theatre group called the "Irate Panthers" perform. Some of their slogans included "emissions down, women's rights up!" and "there is no climate justice without gender and social justice". I felt that this was a great way of drawing attention to gender issues around climate change. You can see them perform for yourselves here. In the end, gender-sensitive text remained in the negotiating documents, but of course without a significant overall outcome from the conference this is a pretty hollow victory. It remains to be seen whether the process will be gender-responsive in the future.

Professor Sonalini attended COP15 as part of the Leadership for Environment and Development (LEAD International) delegation. LEAD is an organization that currently has observer status with the UN.