COP29 row breaks out with Vatican over gender rights

Sources have told BBC News that the Vatican has blocked talks on women’s rights at the UN climate summit after a row over gay and transgender issues.

Colombia’s environment minister told the BBC that representatives of Pope Francis had blocked a deal with Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran and Egypt that would have provided more support, including financial aid, to women at the forefront of climate change. will be provided.

Charities including ActionAid said it was vital that an agreement be reached because the United Nations estimates that 80 percent of those currently displaced by climate change are women and girls.

Representatives of the Vatican, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran and Egypt did not respond to requests for comment.

Countries attending the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan this year were to update the UN’s ten-year-old action plan to ensure that women’s experiences are taken into account in any work on climate change. More money should be provided for

For a decade it has been called the Lima Work Program on Gender.

But the Vatican, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran and Egypt no longer want any reference to “sex” – over fears it could include transgender women, and want to remove references to gay women. , charities who witnessed the talks told the BBC. Negotiators from other countries.

They say it has stalled the whole deal on advancing women’s access to help in the face of climate change.

Colombia’s environment minister and chief negotiator, Susana Mohamed, called the impasse “unacceptable.” She was one of the only country representatives willing to speak on the record. Others spoke to the BBC anonymously on the basis that they were taking part in ongoing negotiations.

“Latin American countries are working very hard – we will not allow the gender agenda to collapse and human rights to collapse,” she told BBC News.

It has been recognized by countries globally for more than a decade that women face a disproportionate burden from climate change, often in their caregiving roles and reproductive services during climate disasters. Because of the barrier to access.

According to UN WomenBy 2050, an estimated 240 million more women and girls will face food insecurity due to climate change, compared to 131 million more men and boys. While at the same time only 0.01% Global funding goes to climate change projects that also take women into account.

In the new plan, African and EU countries also wanted to include a line that not all women’s experiences of climate change are the same – that they may differ depending on their “sex, gender, age and ethnicity”. are

Negotiators in the country told the BBC that the Vatican, along with Saudi Arabia, Russia, Egypt and Iran, had taken issue with the use of the word “gender”, which they believe refers to transgender women. Can also be included.

Observing charities were shocked because for a decade these countries had not raised any issue with the use of the word.

“I was shocked when the Vatican raised its flag and opposed the language of human rights,” said Sostina Thakore from the Christian charity ACT Alliance. “My heart shattered into a million pieces.”

The group of countries also opposed the text because they did not want to refer to gay women, Mwanahamesi Sangano, policy lead at the Women’s Environment and Development Organization, told the BBC.

Ms Sangano, who was in the negotiating room, said countries such as Iran argued that homosexuality was illegal under their laws and therefore would not allow recognition of these groups in the text.

Aid charities have said the deadlock has put the entire deal on women’s support at risk, with just three days left until the conference ends.

“I think it’s not looking good for women’s rights in the talks if things continue like this,” said Zahra Hadidou, ActionAid’s senior climate adviser.

Asked why the Vatican and others are now intervening, nearly a decade later, one country negotiator told the BBC: “It’s part of a wider global backlash against women’s rights and LGBTQ+ rights. part.”

Pope Francis has allowed priests to bless same-sex couples in certain circumstances, and last year he said the Catholic Church could baptize transgender people as long as doing so would cause scandal or “confusion.” Don’t be born.

But the Vatican has said it sees marriage as between one man and one woman, and in April it said it would end its strictures on sex-changes, gender ideology and surrogate parenthood in a text called “Dignitas Infinita” (Infinite Dignity). is against

The current UN program on gender and climate is due to expire at the end of this year, meaning that if nothing is agreed at COP29, there will be no specific global framework to support women facing climate change. There will be no plan.

But Ms Hadidu told the BBC that part of the problem was the under-representation of women in the conversation. According to the United Nations, only 36 percent of negotiators at last year’s conference were women.

“Our voices are often shut out of the COP29 negotiating rooms. Which means we’ll get outcomes that don’t reflect the lived realities of women in climate-affected areas,” she said.

At the start of the conference the EU published a letter – now supported by 17 countries – which said “our ability to tackle the climate crisis depends on our commitment to empowering women and girls in all their diversity”. “