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The annual COP conference is almost upon us. This year, COP28 will be taking place in the UAE's Dubai.
After 2021's conference in Glasgow and last year's conference in Egypt saw world leaders promising to take drastic steps towards battling climate change, what can we expect from this year's event? What are the targets we should expect to see being set? And how will the discussions about the changing climate affect women around the world?
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What is COP28?
Officially known as the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties, COP is an annual gathering in which world leaders, along with government representatives, negotiators, businesses and citizens discuss their plans to take action against climate change. COP, which stands for ‘Conference of the Parties’, dates back to 1995, when the UN launched the conference in Berlin.
This year's conference will take place in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates.
The conference sees world governments unite to discuss actions that can be taken to safeguard our planet.
When is COP28?
COP28 begins on November 28th and runs until December 10th in Expo City Dubai.
What will be discussed at COP28?
Throughout the two week event, attendees will discuss their commitments to reverse damage to the climate and set plans in place to maintain stabilise climate deterioration.
Over the past few years, governments around the world have made commitments that have not always been met. In 2015, The Paris Agreement was formed with the goal of limiting "the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.”
So far, we are not on track to meet this goal. At this year's conference, there will be the first global stocktake with the aim of ensuring that each country re-commits to the goals set out in The Paris Agreement.
“We need to ensure that our voices are heard.”
Are there specific goals for COP28?
How will COP28 affect women?
Although reversing climate change is vital for everyone's futures around the world, the declining state of the climate can often affect women disproportionately.
For instance, higher temperatures can indirectly lead to health problems like uterine prolapse.
“Women in rural, climate-affected communities often bear the brunt of physically demanding agricultural work, made more strenuous by climate change-related challenges like erratic weather and increased labor needs,” Seema Bhaskaran from the non profit Transform Rural India Foundation said. “While climate change doesn’t directly cause uterine prolapse, it magnifies the underlying health challenges and conditions that make women more susceptible to such health issues.”
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Despite this, women were dramatically underrepresented at last year's conference.
“There is still a clear need for much broader (female) representation, in particular from geographies which will be most affected by climate change," said One Young World Ambassador Anna Stanley-Radière to Glamour last year. "Their stories and lived experiences are powerful and their desire to evoke change strong, so we need to ensure their voice is heard.”
This year, active steps are being taken to ensure women's voices are heard at the conference.
On November 10, in the run up to the conference, there was an information session in which the goals of the Gender and Climate Change team were laid out. The session is available to watch here:
From the 28th to 29th November, there will be a global conference on gender and environment data that will see UN representatives, policy makers and members of the Feminist Action for Climate Justice Action Coalition and the Gender Environment Data Alliance (GEDA) will discuss the impact of climate change on women around the world.
The conference will also feature “Gender Day” on December 4th. “The expected outcome is a shared understanding of opportunities and gaps in gender-responsive climate finance and gender just transition and the promotion of knowledge exchange to support gender-just climate action,” reads COP's website.
