Gender-responsive climate action needs to be more urgent: FM Shahid

Gender-responsive climate action requires to be more urgent, says Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abdulla Shahid.

He made this remark while speaking at the virtual ministerial meeting in the margins of the high-level segment of the 46th Session of Human Rights Council titled “Back in Geneva: New Frontiers for Human Rights. Pandemic Preparedness and Response”.

As such, the foreign minister acknowledged the progress that has been reached over the years on integrating human rights into the climate agenda, all the while expressing awareness that there are many aspects that need more focus, especially gender-related impacts of climate change, which need to be built on existing efforts.

In this regard FM Shahid noted that the five-year enhanced Lima Work Programme on Gender and its Gender Action Plan was welcomed at COP 25, a significant step in gender-responsive climate action.

FM Shahid urged for these actions to be more closely interlaced with gender-specific goals and targets under other international frameworks and instruments as well.

He added that it requires more urgency, in light of the “rightly ambitious” timelines that have been set for achieving global gender parity.

During the panel, FM Shahid also expressed that connection between climate change, human rights and gender has “always” been clear to Maldives.

The foreign minister went on to detail that these impacts where highlighted by Maldives in a submission to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights back in 2018 in which FM Shahid shed light on a “fundamental imbalance” between scientific parameters of climate change and the attention devoted to its human costs.

In his statement FM Shahid went on to stress on the unprecedented crisis facing the globe due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, which has further aggravated climate vulnerabilities.

Adding that these aggravated climate vulnerabilities have lead to even greater human costs, the foreign minister noted that women are “disproportionately” suffering from these socio-economic impacts, including losing livelihoods, being faced with more caregiving responsibilities as well as restrictions in mobility in several communities.

FM Shahid highlighted that these new challenges continue to limit women’s capacity to adapt to climate change and contribute to mitigation, with the existing gender norms and biases they face.

In light of this, the foreign minister expressed Maldives’ commitment to drive holistice, scaled up and enhanced action including through the ‘Generation Equality Forum’ scheduled to kick off in Mexico at the end of March 2021.

‘Generation Equality Forum’ is a forum convened by women from the United Nations with an aim to secure “concrete”, “ambitious” and “transformative” commitments to realize “immediate” and “irreversible” progress towards gender equality, via six action coalitions.

FM Shahid stressed that aspirations from the Beijing Conference hosted 25 years back have still not been realized and called for a more targeted and integrated approach that not only catalyzes government, but the civil society, private sector, academia and all aspects of communities as well.

This, the foreign minister said, is exactly what the UN-women-led ‘Generation Equality Forum’ strives to achieve.

Highlighting that Maldives looks forward to collaborate with everyone to generate tremendous momentum and commitments ahead of the meetings in March and June, FM Shahid expressed belief that women have the potential to lead the way to peace and harmony with nature, despite the mankind having ignorantly waged climate change with nature.

The minister concluded his statement by stating that the women empowerment, honoring and respecting them is required in order to achieve a greener, more sustainable and prosperous future.