Only one month after the U.N.'s premier climate summit in Dubai last month, Azerbaijan—the next hosts—announced a 28-man organizing committee with not a single woman. Following justified outrage, they responded by adding only 12 more women on the committee, underscoring how COP29 is likely to marginalize the half of the global population known to bear the most brunt from climate change.
Yet Azerbaijan's marginalization of women from the outset does not come out of the blue. The Azerbaijani government has been accused of routinely harassing, intimidating and abusing female democracy activists, often by sexually humiliating and shaming them, both offline and online. Meanwhile, female activists in Azerbaijan have found themselves disproportionately targeted—including elderly women, who were sprayed with chemicals by police for opposing toxic leaks from a gold mine. Azerbaijan has been the center of controversy in recent years due to its dispute with Armenia, resulting in the annexation of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Under the Tories, the U.K. has become a haven for potential bad actors, including oligarchs from Azerbaijan. In the past, it has been revealed that some Tory MPs have established shadowy links to individuals investigated for money laundering and arms dealing, as well as openly propagandizing as advisors for foreign security firms.
Meanwhile, Rishi Sunak's government has remained entirely silent about the plight of protestors, and especially women, in a country where discrimination against women has been a particularly concerning issue. The Tories' own record on women and children is a disaster: 86 percent of devastating austerity was borne by women; women are worse off than in 2010, and closing the gender pay gap has stalled; and Tory MPs have expressed outright disdain for children and parents from underprivileged backgrounds.
Even now, Sunak has given men all top four positions in government after yet another reshuffle last November. And the COVID-19 inquiry revealed that the absence of women from key decision-making posts led to women dying from domestic abuse during lockdown.
In such a climate of casual patriarchy, when nations that lead the way like the U.K. act in such a manner, how does this not then embolden countries like Azerbaijan to marginalize women?
Instead of sidelining women from climate talks, the imperative is to put them at their heart. COP28 set a much higher bar than previous U.N. climate talks, with participants describing it as by far the most diverse and inclusive COP ever. It not only hosted the first day at a COP ever dedicated to gender equality, it opened the door to far more women, young people, Indigenous Peoples and civil society voices than ever before.
And it is in light of the ground-breaking "United Arab Emirates Consensus" forged at COP28—which created the world's first global agreement on transitioning away from fossil fuels—that Azerbaijan's COP29 presidency will be further judged.
With 2023 being designated as the warmest year on record and the world continuously rocked by an explosion in frequency of natural disasters, the focus at COP29 must be on implementing the milestone goals agreed at COP28—including tripling renewable energy by 2030, operationalizing the climate loss and damage fund, and above all, finding a way to unleash the trillions of climate finance needed by the developing world.
This cannot be done without elevating the voices of the world's women, who are not only on the frontlines of climate catastrophes, but are the ones who end up bearing the burden of caring for their families and societies in times of heightened vulnerability.
The climate crisis is also a chief factor in driving increased migration—a harsh reality that populists have seized on to push their hateful agendas, as seen with the reality-bending Rwanda bill. Sunak's government and its dire track record on climate action, clean energy, and gender equality has damaged our reputation on the global stage. The U.K.'s actions matter because what we do in Britain sets an example for the world.
It's not too late to rectify matters. If Azerbaijan, as the hosts of COP29, is to build on the pledges at COP28, they must demonstrate their seriousness by including women equally in the COP29 process.
Naz Shah is the member of U.K. Parliament for Bradford West since 2015 and listed in the Muslim500 alongside the most influential Muslims globally. She has served as shadow minister for crime reduction, shadow minister for community cohesion, and shadow minister for women & equalities. She is chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Muslim Women, and vice chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Groups on Race and Community; British Muslims; and several others.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
