ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on women's participation in the global climate change regime and seeks evidence of the use of feminist epistemologies and transversal political strategies to accommodate difference while also forging a basis for coherent participation in global environmental governance. The need for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) regime to extend its reach beyond the traditional parameters of a top-down approach into more bottom-up forms of participation seems to have become evident quite early on. However, the UNFCCC secretariat only approved the women/gender grouping's application for provisional constituency status in 2009. Advocating women's participation in the climate change regime is predicated on the proposition that their involvement is necessary in order to effectively address the gender issues raised. Even if practical considerations did not support the case for women's full involvement in the climate change debate, matters of principle make it a moral imperative.