Ahead of COP31, what can advocates and parties learn from participation data at SB64?

As we approach COP31 in Türkiye, gender equality and environmental justice remain critical battlegrounds for feminist climate activists around the globe. At the Pacific Pre-COP in Fiji earlier this month, feminists led the demand for gender-responsive climate action and faced the tough task of ensuring that global commitments, such as the Belém Gender Action Plan agreed to by parties at COP30, become actionable through national and international policies and financing. Ensuring that women and gender-diverse people have a seat at the negotiating table is one important mechanism through which parties can prioritize inclusive climate decision-making. Understanding recent trends in women’s participation in climate negotiations helps advocates and parties document progress, backsliding, and opportunities for more representative delegations. 

Since 2009, the Gender Climate Tracker (GCT) has tracked women’s participation statistics at UN climate negotiations. Over the past 17 years, women’s representation at SBs has steadily increased by 14 percentage points, culminating in full statistical gender parity this past summer at SB64.

While this is a promising trend, and the hard work of many around the world to achieve it deserves recognition, a closer look at the data shows more work must be done. Men remain overrepresented in positions of power, as 43% of delegations at SB64 had more men than women, and only 40% of delegation heads were women. Additionally, regional differences persist. This year, the Pacific Islands had the highest representation of female delegates, with 67% of representatives being women. This is a marked improvement from last year, when only 48% of all delegates from the region were women. However, in Asia and Africa, women’s participation dropped compared to last year's SB62, and the difference between the regions with the highest representation and those with the lowest is 23 percentage points.

Additionally, the data on Least Developed Countries (LDCs) shows that only 43% of delegates at SB64 were women. This data should not be dismissed as mere deprioritization of women’s representation, but rather an indication of structural and political disadvantages that limit women’s equal participation. Delegate composition can be shaped by direct forces such as visa barriers, or more indirect forces such as care-related duties and entrenched gender norms. But these barriers may not apply or be relevant across regions, as women’s participation from many LDCs far exceeds the global average, such as Kiribati (57.1%), Gambia (57.8%), Mozambique (57.1%), Solomon Islands (66.7%), and Sudan (87.5%).

As we head into COP31, feminist advocates remember that participation is not integration, and that gender parity at Bonn does not necessitate gender-responsive climate action. Decisions are often influenced just as much, if not more, by tensions outside of the negotiating room than by the people in the room. Achieving truly just results means reckoning with the geopolitical struggles that make up the backdrop of these negotiations. The blockade in the Strait of Hormuz has put a chokehold on oil supplies and led to global economic inflation and energy insecurity, exposing the fragility of a reliance on fossil fuels. At the same time, there has been a rightward shift towards political models that rely on extraction, militarization, wealth inequality, and a rollback of human rights across the globe. Coupled with a coordinated crackdown on LGBTQIA+ civil society, human rights defenders, and activists in Türkiye, the stage is set for a COP that is heavily pressured by regressive political and capitalist influences. 

Climate policy decisions are never insulated from these geopolitical conditions. While advocates should be encouraged by more equitable representation at SB64, simply having more women in the room during climate negotiations does not necessarily equate to more gender-just policy, nor does it dismantle the systems of oppression that have led to such reliance on extraction and exploitation.

Feminists are making plans to continue their activism at this COP and beyond. Pacific feminists have delivered the 17 Urgent Demands of Pacific Feminists Defending the Living Planet, a vision for feminist climate justice at the Pacific Pre-COP. To reject sidelining gender equality as just an add-on for climate, we must demand timely, open, and intersectional participation data to better understand the diverse voices in the room across the Rio Conventions. 

Crucially, we need more information to understand the role women play in these negotiations: How much power do women negotiators have? How respected are they compared to their peers? And where do invisible barriers remain? We consistently observe higher women’s representation at Bonn than at the higher-profile summits like COP; how do prestige and visibility dictate who countries select for critical negotiations? More research is needed to understand the vital role other gender-diverse people play in advancing climate priorities. Numerical parity is only the beginning; without deeper understanding, representation risks becoming just another box to check and fails to break down the existing barriers and hierarchies within climate negotiations