Women Speaking And Leading Loudly On Climate Change – COP 25 & Greta

From teen climate activist Greta Thunberg being named Time magazine “Person of the Year,” to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi leading a Congressional delegation to the 2019 United Nations gathering on climate change (aka COP25) in Madrid, Spain, to women “warrior” mayors of the Amazon, and COP25’s Gender Day, women are leveraging the global event to focus the world’s attention on their urgent and insistent demands for immediate and substantial action on climate. They are also demanding that women’s rights be properly addressed in those climate actions.  

At COP25’s Gender Day, Women’s climate activist groups collectively advocated for a feminist Green New Deal and the presentation of toolkits and technologies to address climate change that reflect consideration of gender-specific needs and women’s rights.

Even the business leaders from the Business Council for Sustainable Energy happen to be almost all women, including Nanette Lockwood, Senior Director, Climate Policy at Ingersoll Rand;  Ashley Allen, Climate and Land Senior Manager at Mars, Inc.; and Sharon Tomkins, Vice President, Strategy and Engagement and Chief Environmental Officer at Southern California Gas Company.

Women naturally find novel solutions

This reminds me of how women lawmakers were the ones who finally found a settlement to the government shutdown in 2013.

Women are natural innovators, because they have had to find another way to solve challenges and get things done, since they have not historically had the reigns of power or the power of the purse (pardon the pun), as Secretary General of the Council of Women World Leaders, Laura Liswood, told me on my podcast, Green Connections Radio.

Formally known as the 25th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), COP25 comes at a pivotal moment when critical forces are converging: this past July was the warmest month in history; “CO2 reached a record high” this November; the U.S. is on the brink of fulfilling Trump’s declaration to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accord (which officially happens next year, in 2020);  2020 is also the 50^th anniversary of Earth Day; and the world is watching Trump face impeachment from office while campaigning for reelection at a time when women vote in larger numbers than men.  And, 2020 is the centennial of the 19^th Amendment, giving women the right to vote.

Extreme weather events on an historic scale in 2019 “left trail of destruction and revealed climate change fingerprints,” as The Washington Post reported, reminding us of the stakes. “It (2019) was the fourth straight busier-than-normal hurricane season.”

Perhaps the silver lining in the Trump administration’s climate denialism and support of continued CO2 emissions, against the rest of the global economic and geopolitical community, is that people who have been quiet are speaking up and are finding other ways to stop climate change. They cannot depend on the U.S. government to lead on this issue so they have to find another way. 

Female influencers driving change?

Since kids influence their parents (in everything from media habits to recycling), and since women drive 85% of consumer spending — and women are skilled at finding innovative solutions — maybe student activists like Greta Thunberg and women loudly demanding action will create stronger, more immediate steps to combat climate change across the globe.

After all, this is a multi-generational challenge that affects every single person on Mother Earth, no matter where they live or how much money they have.  Even Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property in Florida is at grave risk from sea-level rise.