They found some women! Not just one woman, but twelve women to bolster the previously announced 28-man committee tasked with organising the UN’s COP29 climate summit.
Unfortunately, this intentional hunt for women only came after international condemnation of the petrostate of Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, having the audacity to go public with a committee that failed to include a single woman.
Indeed, there were more fossil fuel executives than there were women when the committee was first announced. And there were more men named Anar, than women, including Assistant to the President Anar Alakbarov and Urban Planning State Committee chair Anar Guliyev.
Incredibly, President Ilham Aliyev only took a couple of days to unveil the 12 women they had found, including Deputy Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources Umayra Taghiyeva and Human Rights Commissioner Sabina Aliyeva. At the same time, Aliyev also found another two men, creating a 42-person committee.
When Aliyev announced the 28 all-male committee last week, the international condemnation came swiftly and quickly.
While it would have been nice to hear from more prominent current and former country leaders, women’s voices were notably the loudest.
Former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said she was “appalled” by the move. Teresa Ribera, the deputy Prime Minister of Spain declared, “no woman to host … may mean… no woman willing to come… resulting in… no COP” on social media.
Christiana Figueres, the former UN climate chief responsible for the groundbreaking Paris Agreement, and arguably one of the most successful climate negotiators of all time, described the all-male committee as “shocking and unacceptable”.
Meanwhile, 75 female business and political leaders worldwide sent an open letter to the president declaring that the best outcomes could depend on the president including “as many women as possible” on the committee. The letter from the We Mean Business Coalition said the eyes of the world will be on Baku, and noted that “gender diversity is crucial to successful negotiations and decision-making, bringing with it better, bolder decisions that have been shown to last.”
The Coalition also highlighted the role of women in some of the most successful COP negotiations, including the Paris Agreement, which was led by women — a notable success, given just five women have even been presidents of these global climate negotiations.
Women’s leadership at international negotiation tables is already lacking, making the need to intentionally include women in organising committees like this one all the more essential. At last year’s COP, just 15 out of the 140 speakers on the main stage were women, a slight increase from the number in 2022.
This is despite the disproportionate impact of climate change on women and girls, including how extreme weather events impact women’s safety and contribute to gender-based violence, the evidence that child marriages increase in areas impacted by climate risks, especially drought, as well as how climate change further prevents girls from accessing education.
As Women’s Agenda shared last year in The Climate Load, climate change is and will continue to affect the safety and health of women in Australia, while women must be included in the massive industry upheaval required ahead if Australia is to be successful in meeting our emission reduction targets.
The swift action taken by the president to appoint 12 women to the committee was “warmly welcomed,” according to Maria Mendiluce, CEO of the We Mean Business Coalition.
But the fact that in 2024 a president is appointing 28 men and no woman to any organising committee is nothing short of jaw-dropping, let alone a committee tasked with organising critical global climate negotiations.