Media is the Link

Climate change policies driven by science, but solved by changes in human behavior: Media is the link.

Delegates at CSW53 heard rousing presentations on how a radical change in values and attitudes were needed before people would make a real effort to help reverse climate change.

The conference is giving a voice to development and environmental lobby groups to help shape the action agenda for the new Protocol on climate change to be crafted in Denmark in December this year.

Women affected most and they deserve a voice.

Soon-Young Yoon of the International Alliance of Women told delegates at the panel discussion on gender and climate change she had sensed a reluctance by many women leaders to take up climate change. She reminded them that women share disproportionately in the burden of climate change. She said women in developing countries, who are the nurturers – concerned with water and food for their children - need a voice.

Soon-Young Yoon, International Alliance of Women

“The media should also hear their voice. That way, the world would sit up and notice we are talking about real people and their grand children. We have a responsibility towards their future.”

Ms Yoon said climate change policies may be driven by the science, but it will be solved by changes in human behavior.
Media can make the science of climate change accessible.
Ms Yoon says there is a need to demystify the science. “We must take hold of its truth, and make it our own. The media can help us with that”.

Another panelist, Winnie Byanyima of the UNDP echoed those thoughts. “The science of climate change is highly technical – it can be alienating, yet it is vital that it is properly understood”, says Ms Byanyima.

Winnie Byanyima, UNDP: Women, Gender and Development Unit.

Ms Byanyima says the media needs to become part of the partnership to make the efforts to halt climate change work. “A well-informed journalist, who can tell the story in a way to make everyone care is a tool for change”, she says.

Striving for win-win

“A better informed public and women becoming a part of policy-making – those are just some steps to ensure that climate change damage is reversed", says Rebecca Pearl of the Global Gender and Climate Alliance.

Rebecca Pearl, Coordinator: Global Gender and Climate Change Alliance

Pearl is lobbying to gather climate change policy recommendations from women’s groups worldwide – from the high volume carbon burning countries and from underdeveloped countries, who are burdened with climate damage. The recommendations are to be heard at the Climate Change Meeting in Copenhagen in December, 2009 (COP 15), where a new agreement on Climate Change will be established as a follow-up to the present Kyoto Protocol.

Pearl says there is hope for redress if women of the world become part of a bold move to counter climate change and if the media helps the rest understand why that is important.

Useful links:

CSW Panel on Climate change negotiations--an action agenda http://www.un.org/webcast/SE2009
Global Warming: UN Framework Convention on Climate Change - http://unfccc.int/
UN Climate Change Conference Dec 2009 - http://en.cop15.dk/
COP 15 Climate Thinkers Blog - http://en.cop15.dk/blogs/climate+thinkers+blog
Gender and Climate Change - http://www.gencc.interconnection.org/
Internews Earth Journalism Network - http://www.earthjournalism.org/

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Call to Action.....

Notable Events for March:

Earth HourEarth Hour is a global World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) climate change initiative which calls on individuals, businesses, governments and communities to switch off their lights for one hour on Saturday March 28, 2009 at 8:30 PM. The action is a show of support for action on climate change and more specifically for a fair, effective and science-based global deal to be negotiated by world leaders at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference at the end of this year. The agreement will come into play from 2012, which is the end of the commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol.