Tracy Kajumba is the director for the Least Developed Countries initiative for Effective Adaptation and Resilience (LIFE-AR) interim secretariat and a member of the climate change research group at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).
I’ve been working on gender equity since I joined the Ugandan civil service over 20 years ago. As a young woman I was never nominated for training even when I was qualified; male counterparts got those opportunities.
I was called a bully for having the guts to apply for a senior management role perceived as a man’s domain. When I reported for my first day, a senior male official offered to change my posting for fear I couldn’t manage the large division I’d been allocated, proposing to transfer me somewhere less busy.
Most professional women will have had experiences like these, which unfortunately are often downplayed or ignored. My stories aren’t from a UN COP climate summit, but they easily could have been. As recently as the past couple of years, women have reported being the targets of very similar prejudice at the UNFCCC’s flagship climate negotiations – in addition to bullying and sexual harassment.
That’s despite 2025 marking 30 years since the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action on women’s rights was adopted – and the existence of myriad initiatives and schemes designed to improve women’s representation at international events like COP.
Weak gender focus at COP29 risks leaving women behind in greener future
These efforts notwithstanding, it’s clear women are dealing with the same challenges today as I faced two decades ago, and others faced in the decades before I entered the workforce.
At COP29, hosts Azerbaijan had an all-male team of 28 before criticism forced them to add 12 women. Only eight of the 78 world leaders who attended were women.
Overall, women made up little more than a third of COP29 delegates, suggesting there are barriers to their participation not just within the UNFCCC process but at national level around the world.
Recent research by the International Institute for Environment and Development bears this out. We surveyed delegates and other COP attendees – men and women – from the Least Developed Countries group (LDCs) to understand these barriers at a level of detail top-line global statistics just can’t provide.
High costs, low expectations
Travel emerged as a huge issue. Attending COP and its preparatory meetings in Bonn is expensive for low-income countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. With limited travel budgets, senior officials get priority. As a result many women – who are often in junior roles – are excluded or must find funding elsewhere.
This year’s Bonn meetings are just around the corner and observers will be watching closely to see whether talk of improving women’s representation is being translated into action.
The divide also raised the question for our survey respondents about whether they felt their participation at COP was meaningful. They noted that women were more likely to occupy logistical, note-taking or report-writing roles while male counterparts engaged more prominently in negotiations.
COP officially lasts two weeks but preparations and post-summit debriefing add another fortnight to the schedule, so this support work can be onerous. Adding to this challenge are social expectations on women not to stay away from their families for too long.
Brazil seeks early deals on two stalled issues at Bonn climate talks
Unsurprisingly, deeply entrenched gender norms and patriarchal views still influence the structuring of jobs and power. Women told us they were frequently considered incapable of managing complex negotiations. One male interviewee said he thought women found COP “hectic”, especially in their high heels, which put them off attending future summits.
As a mother of two and a frequent traveller, I know what it’s like to leave young children behind – and to wish you could bring them with you only to realise there’s no support system to enable that. Mothers told us they faced higher travel costs and that accreditation and visas for their babies were difficult to obtain, often being processed in different countries. There are no childcare services at COP.
Time for a COP creche
So what’s to be done? Quotas and other gender-responsive policies are often counted as a metric of success. But if they’re not actually deployed, they don’t work. While many LDCs have policies that support gender equity, we found their implementation at scale appeared to be weak.
There are some bright spots where LDCs are addressing this problem. Rwanda has a gender monitoring office tracking how policies and laws are put into effect. Mozambique is developing criteria to support female participation with experienced women negotiators mentoring up-and-coming officials, while Sierra Leone is creating a transparent nomination process that builds on its national gender and empowerment act, which stipulates 30% female representation.
UN action on gender and climate faces uphill climb as warming hurts women
It’s important to say these issues affect women globally. IIED supports the LDCs at COP and hosts the interim secretariat for the group’s initiative on climate change adaptation, called LIFE-AR. This partnership enabled our research, which we hope will inform efforts to improve women’s representation worldwide.
Imagine if there was a COP creche where children from around the globe could play and learn about each other, while watching their parents work to secure their future. Simple solutions can coexist with the hard daily grind of challenging power dynamics and patriarchy, while more formal schemes like a mentor system give intentional support to the next generation of negotiators.
COP29 last year was rattled when former leaders declared the negotiations “not fit for purpose” and called for a major rethink. Such large-scale reform will involve painful geopolitical wrangling. There are less complicated changes we can and should implement now that will make UNFCCC summits more relevant and representative for everyone, ensuring COP lives up to the UN’s 2030 goal of “leaving no one behind”.
The post ‘Hectic’ in high heels? Women still face gender hurdles at UN climate talks appeared first on Climate Home News.
‘Hectic’ in high heels? Women still face gender hurdles at UN climate talks
A report from Greenpeace Australia Pacific and Springmount Advisory reveals the untapped green economic opportunity for Western Australia in a declining Asian gas market, which also offers a genuine solution for decarbonisation in Asia.
Is Western Australia clinging to a fading gas industry while a thriving green future passes it by? As major Asian trading partners rapidly pivot away from volatile gas imports toward cheap solar and battery storage, this report exposes a high-stakes choice: risk becoming stranded in an oversupplied fossil fuel market, or harness WA’s unmatched sun and wind to lead the global clean energy transition.
Summary
From Gas to Green: Building Western Australia’s Future State reveals that Western Australia (WA) faces a critical juncture as falling Asian gas demand, geopolitical gas supply volatility and accelerating renewable energy deployment undermine the long-term economic viability of gas exports. By harnessing its world-class wind and solar resources, the report demonstrates that WA can execute an orderly phase-out of gas and pioneer a green commodity export economy that could generate $987 billion in economic value by 2060, create 24,000 ongoing jobs, and drive a 9.6% reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions.
Key Findings
- Gas demand is falling in Asia – WA can no longer rely on gas exports: Gas demand in core Asian markets fell in 2025 and is projected to continue to decline in 2026. Legislated energy plans in Japan, South Korea, and China now prioritise renewables and nuclear over gas.
- Asia is increasing renewables, importing gas just gets in the way: Evidence from markets like Thailand suggests that gas imports are increasingly crowding out cheaper renewable energy investments and battery storage rather than displacing coal, locking in more emissions over time.
- Green commodities offer a real solution to decarbonise Asia – this is a major win for WA: With world-class renewables, WA can lead Australia’s green commodity exports, which by 2060 could be worth almost a trillion dollars ($987 billion) and support a genuine 9.6% reduction in global emissions.
Recommendations to WA government
Recommendation 1: Plan an orderly gas phase-out aligned with a trading partner pivot plan
Implement a managed, orderly phase-out of gas exports aligned with trading partners’ decarbonisation pathways, rather than waiting for demand to collapse, by:
- Developing and implementing a staged phase-out of gas facilities aligned with feedstock supply expiry or typical end of facility lifespans.
- Committing to no new gas development for gas expansion, including Browse and Kimberley fields.
- Developing new, reciprocal trade relationships with existing gas trade partners, structured to progressively replace gas exports with green commodities – integrated with recommendation 2.
Recommendation 2: Develop an integrated green commodity export strategy, positioning WA as a global green iron manufacturing hub
Establish an integrated green commodity export strategy that immediately prioritises green iron development, positioning WA as a global green iron manufacturing hub, by:
- Committing to green commodity export targets to give industry and investors a clear demand signal.
- Prioritising green iron as the lead sector within the broader green commodity strategy, given WA’s iron ore endowment and first-mover potential.
Recommendation 3: Reject false solutions such as carbon dumping (CCS) and blue hydrogen
Reject carbon dumping (also described as carbon capture and storage, or CCS) and blue hydrogen as viable decarbonisation technologies, and prioritise green hydrogen and proven renewables for clean energy and fuel production by:
- Excluding blue hydrogen projects (and CCS-dependent projects) from all government support programs.
- Requiring existing hydrogen-based production (including ammonia, methanol, synthetic fuels) to have clear, near-term transition timelines to switch to green hydrogen production.
What you can do
Together, we can push for a prosperous green future.
You can help by:
- Sending an email to Environment Minister Murray Watt and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, calling on them to reject Browse.
- Sharing this story to help more Australians understand what’s at stake.
- Encouraging your friends and family to take action.
REPORT: “From Gas to Green” Building Western Australia’s Future State
Cleaner cooking projects in the UN carbon market will have to set aside a share of their credits to insure against the risk that the trees they save are lost to fire, drought or logging, after the market’s regulator rejected calls to exempt the sector.
The requirement is part of a new rulebook that the Paris Agreement carbon market regulator – the Article 6.4 Supervisory Body – approved last Friday for programmes that aim to cut emissions by distributing new and cleaner cookstoves in regions that still burn wood or charcoal for cooking.
These are the UN mechanism’s first rulebooks for cookstoves, one of the carbon market’s most popular credit types and also one of its most criticised for overstating climate benefits.
They consist of two methodologies: one for programmes that aim to cut greenhouse gas emissions by distributing more efficient cookstoves that burn less wood or charcoal, and a separate methodology for projects shifting households to lower-emissions cookers running on electricity or liquid petroleum gas (LPG).
Mkhuthazi Steleki, the South African chair of the Supervisory Body, said “this decision gives cleaner cooking projects a new pathway under the UN carbon market, with clear rules to ensure that each credit represents a real and credible emission reduction”.
Industry and NGOs lobby to weaken UN carbon credit rules in “coordinated” push
In copycat submissions and a private briefing to government officials, the groups have opposed a proposal to tighten safeguards for emissions offsetsLaunch of Africa Energy Bank delayed again in blow to oil and gas hopes
Repeated delays are raising questions about the bank’s momentum and whether it can mobilise investment to finance Africa’s oil and gas ambitions in an era of energy transition
Exemption push rejected
More efficient cookstove projects earn credits based on the amount of carbon they save by preserving trees that would have otherwise been cut down and burned for fuel. But if those trees later burn in a wildfire or are logged, the carbon stored would be released anyway, erasing the climate benefits of the credits.
Several carbon credit developers, conservation NGOs and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) disputed that cookstove projects face this risk, in what critics described as a “coordinated lobbying campaign”.
They argued that, unlike forest protection schemes, this type of credit represents a “flow” of avoided emissions rather than a “stock” of stored carbon that can be released. They also warned that requiring a buffer would impose disproportionate costs and undermine the financial viability of these activities.
But the UN carbon market regulator was not persuaded by the argument. It decided that projects would have to protect against this reversal risk by handing over a percentage of credits to a so-called “buffer pool” instead of selling them.
‘New paradigm’
The amount of credits to be given up is calculated by applying different methods for natural risks, like wildfires, droughts or hurricanes, and human-caused ones, such as logging or land clearing.
For natural risks, project developers will need to apply local risk values derived from new modelling published by a group of independent scientists.
Campaigners have broadly welcomed the decision. Federica Dossi, an expert at Brussels-based advocacy group Carbon Market Watch, said it sets a new paradigm for calculating reversal risk based on empirical data. “This approach is grounded in science and we hope to see this now being adopted by other carbon crediting mechanisms in the voluntary market,” she added.
Backers claim this method is more rigorous than current practice in the voluntary carbon market, which largely relies on expert guesswork.
Pre-COP draws attention to Pacific’s climate plight and 1.5C goal
Pushback over science
As Climate Home News previously revealed, the same industry and NGO groups that sought an exemption from the “buffer pool”, along with some corporate buyers, criticised the use of a study backed by the UN carbon market’s experts that recommended the new risk assessment approach.
The groups pushed for more flexible rules that would have allowed natural risk values drawn from other sources, including national databases, or from the project developers themselves.
While the Supervisory Body rejected this approach, it gave project developers and countries the option to propose alternative values that would first need to be vetted by the mechanism’s expert panel and then approved by the regulator.
A carbon market expert told Climate Home News that, while it is too early to say how this provision will be used, they expect requests will have to be backed up with solid scientific evidence, lowering the risk of unfounded claims.
Policy discounts questioned
To guard against human-caused risks, projects will need to apply a flat 20% value set by the Supervisory Body, at the bottom of the 20-45% range recommended by its technical experts ahead of last week’s meeting.
That value can be further reduced by up to two-thirds if the host country has an emission-reduction plan covering forests, a long-term climate strategy and a framework for the UN’s REDD+ forest protection scheme.
Injy Johnstone, senior research fellow at the Munich-based Max Planck Institute, said that, while these are important governance measures, their existence does not necessarily demonstrate that the underlying risk of forest carbon loss has been reduced.
“It is important to distinguish between evidence of actual risk reduction and assumptions about the effectiveness of policy commitments,” she added.
Moving target
A UN source told Climate Home News that, under the approved formula, improved cookstove projects must set aside at least 9% of credits linked to saved wood if they operate in the lowest-risk areas and the host country can claim all available discounts. The share of credits rises significantly in regions with high natural risk values, such as Guyana, Sri Lanka and Timor Leste, or that do not have REDD+ programmes.
These factors could change in the future as the Supervisory Body asked its technical experts to recommend revisiting the risk values “should credible new evidence arise”.
Climate change is likely to make forest destruction events, such as wildfires or hurricanes, more frequent and more severe in certain regions. Meanwhile, national policies on forest protection can shift significantly depending on government changes.
Johnstone said the UN carbon market needs periodic reassessment to respond to new evidence showing that previously assumed levels of risk were too low.
“The integrity of credits is not guaranteed simply because a reversal risk tool exists,” she added. “The real test will be whether the mechanism provides equivalent atmospheric protection over time, rather than simply introducing another layer of accounting requirements”.
The post UN carbon market forces cookstove projects to protect against forest loss appeared first on Climate Home News.
UN carbon market forces cookstove projects to protect against forest loss
Next week, diplomats from around the world will descend on Yerevan, Armenia, to negotiate a series of decisions under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
Between 19 and 30