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Hello, thank you for joining us. We are proud to welcome you to our special series, Survival by Degrees, brought to you by Brill, where we talk about the climate crisis and what tackling it really entails. I'm your host, Lee Jungrago. Today we're speaking with Dr.
Nillefor, or she's the Director of the Center for International Law at the National University of Singapore and a member of the United Nations International Law Commission. Her chapter of the book, Gender and Law of the Sea is Climate Change, Oceans and Gender. Dr. Ral, thank you so much for sitting down with us today.
Thank you so much. It's really a great pleasure to be part of this podcast. Just to start, how does gender factor into discussions about climate change and how does climate change impact women uniquely? Well, what I'm going to do with your question is start perhaps from the last part, as to how are women impacted by climate change.
First of all, everyone will be impacted by climate change. That's quite clear. And in particularly vulnerable communities, poor communities, lower economic communities, and to be quite honest, this is across the board in all countries. However, women are particularly vulnerable, and that is why you might say uniquely vulnerable.
And let me just explain why that is climate change has different components. And we can look at what we call slow onset events, such as sea level rise, ocean warming, ocean acidification, ocean deoxygenation. And then we also have sudden onset events. And those are hurricanes, typhoons, cyclones, coastal flooding.
So in this sense, women have a certain vulnerability, in particular in certain communities. And so I'm not an anthropologist or a sociologist, so I have to go by other studies. And UNESCO did a study of gender and disaster risk reduction and found a disproportionate impact of disaster events on women. And this has a lot to do with socioeconomic factors, cultural factors, cultural beliefs, the position of women.
And so in many communities, women may have a secondary position. They may not be part of the decision making process. They may be excluded from certain possibilities to gain access to disaster relief. So when we look at climate change, we have to look at is also part of the disaster relief scenario.
So the gender issue has been and is being addressed within this disaster framework, such as the HEDIGO framework, the SANDI framework. And so we have another specific example of how women are being impacted with climate change. So I cited to you some of the so-on-site events, ocean acidification, ocean warming, ocean deoxygenation. Well, guess what?
These are impacting fishing and shellfish. And it's interesting, I mean, myself included, you know, we associate fishing activities with men, but a lot of women are involved in this. In fact, you'd be surprised maybe, you know, that 60% of seafood is marketed by women in African countries in Asia, as well as shellfish gathering. So 90 million women around the world are engaged in the fisheries industry.
So women are there in this field, but this is an area that is going to be heavily impacted by these slow onset events. And women are often, because they tend to have a smaller voice. They're more vulnerable. They're weaker in their societies, in these poor communities.
Although I have to say, you know, this is not just in developing countries, developed countries as well. So we can see how climate change in different aspects, in different aspects, will impact and are impacting women. Also, I want to say something else. What's important.
So in terms of activities that involve women, climate change, and I said fisheries. Luckily, though, I mean, this is being looked at and addressed within the UN system. So, for example, the food and agricultural organization of the United Nations, which is responsible, so global has a global responsibility for fisheries, did a report promoting gender equality and empowerment of women and fisheries and agriculture, and they also adopted a policy promoting gender equality for 2020, 2023. Another important milestone.
And again, I'm looking at the fisheries issues because this is such an important issue and climate change is going to have a huge impact on it. FAO, finally, 2020, you know, has created its first ever women's committee. So, just to highlight again, the vulnerability of women, again, I'm going by the information that's available. The OECD report, 70% of the world's poor are women, as a result of their unequal access to resources, gender roles.
And again, as I said earlier, they are usually often excluded from decision making processes. So, again, I want to focus on some of the positive developments. Small island developing states have been a leading voice in climate change since 1989, and in their similar pathway statement, which is a policy statement. The small island developing is specifically adopted a policy to promote and enhance gender equality and women's equal participation in policies and programs and both the public and private sectors.
So, women are vulnerable in the climate change world. In recent times, their voices being heard more, more activities are taking place to, how should I say, to bring to attention more of these vulnerabilities, particularly under the United Nations framework. But maybe we can talk more about these things as we progress in this conversation we're having. Can you talk about this international law of the sea and how it excludes women?
The sea is traditionally male, although they do use feminine pronouns sometimes for it. If you go back and look at ancient lore, I mean, for Marin as women on ships were considered unlucky. When you look at the Homer's cusco-lissus, he had to tie himself to the massive ship to be protected against the fatal call of the sirens, the people were calling the sailors to their death. So, we have this tradition, unfortunately, of women and the sea not necessarily going together.
Now, so the sea, mariners shipping, sailing, it's been very, very male dominated. And that includes for the negotiation process, which is what I'm going to talk you right now is about law of the sea, international law of the sea. It's hard to separate the male domination of the law of the sea, but the fact that it was basically negotiated by a man because in the diplomatic world, there were so few women for many, many years. And I'm a member of the International Law Commission.
And just to give you an example, when the International Law Commission celebrated its 70th anniversary in 2019 or 2018, we realized that in 70 years, there have only been seven women members and members are usually nominated by the foreign ministries. So, when you look at the negotiation history of the law of the sea, women are barely there. One woman of prominence was not a negotiate, however, but she contributed greatly was the Elizabeth Porque as a man. So, it's not surprising that the law of the sea has not thought about the gender issues at all.
And just another example of the male domination is under the law of the sea convention, they established the international tribunal for the law of the sea. So when the law of the sea come as you went into effect, the tribunal was established. And there are, I think it's 21 members. I'm always bad with remembering numbers, but not one woman, yet 21 members were elected by states.
All right, by state. So this is the problem, it's states governments, not one woman. And the first woman was not elected until at least I think about 10 years later. And right now, there are still very few women on international tribunal for the law of the sea.
Now, this is because states nominate, it's not the United Nations itself and I think people sometimes confuse that. So women have been systematically excluded from the decision making process, the negotiating process at the highest level, the judicial process of the law of the sea in academics as well. When we look at the academics of law of the sea, there are more women now, and this is the good news. But for many years, it was again, highly male dominated, particularly fields such as maritime delimitation.
I thought it was very interesting that you opened up with sort of the culture of the sea and it's interesting that you talk about how the sea itself is sort of seen as a woman in poetry and history and sort of eyes of men on the sea, I guess. And I wonder how much of this female representation or lack of female representation rather in these negotiations. How much of that do you think has to do with that culture, that feeling that, you know, women don't really belong at the sea that. No, it's all about exclusion of women from foreign affairs.
That's what it is. It's just that, you know, people who negotiate are necessarily law of the sea people. There are diplomats. So it's just that there are a few women diplomats.
There are no women diplomats, frankly. So it's less to do with that than just the inherent male domination of the diplomatic field. So you see in the show from the beginning, so it's kind of a sub problem of international law to begin with, quite often. So you only have men negotiating.
Then you set up the tribunal. You only have men in the tribunal. And then the lawyers appearing before the tribunal are men, very few women. So again, we're looking in the past, but now we look at the present.
There's much more awareness. And I just want to give the example of the International Maritime Organization, which is the UN organization that is responsible. And they have very conscientiously taken up the gender issue through the IMO and gender program, but just to highlight where we are with women. So women represent 1.2% of the global seafarer workforce in 2020.
Now, according to the IMO, this represents over 5% increase compared to 2015 when they reported it. And just on one more note on this, I have to acknowledge that there's progress. The first president of the world, Maritime University, that is in Malmo, is a woman, Dr. Cleopatra to be a Henry.
So we're making progress. So I want to talk about the 1992 United Nations framework Convention on Climate Change, which recognizes the socioeconomic needs of developing countries. But then it's not until the 2015 Paris Agreement that gender is acknowledged in the discussion of climate change. Why did it take until 2015 for gender to be recognized here?
And how did the 1992 UNFCC set the stage for that? So the climate change framework is that there's the 1992 UNFCCC. And that was a convention that was based very much on the science provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. So it was much more emphasis on how to mitigate climate change reduction of emissions.
However, over time, adaptation also became important and other issues. And the IPCC reports have taken into account more and more socioeconomic factors. You had the Kyoto Protocol, but again, that was only about emission reduction. Now, in 2009, there was a great hope for the Copenhagen Agreement, but that didn't pan out.
So we had to wait until 2015. But I should say, in the interim, the UNFCCC system, they did start addressing gender issues. So, for example, in 2010, when they extended the mandate for the least developed countries, they also included that gender-related considerations be included. And why?
Because as we know, the most vulnerable communities are those that will be most impacted by climate change, and women are the most vulnerable in those most vulnerable communities. Since then, they've heard of other decisions, programs, workshops, and I won't name them all. They're in the article, actually. So progressively, leading up to 2015, women have been acknowledged.
And I think that played an important role when the Paris Agreement was negotiated. And I was there. It was one of the negotiators. And I know the whole process that took place because it wasn't just gender, but human rights, other issues were really for the first time addressed in the preamble.
And again, and I think this is really showing that climate change has become more, not just about mitigation and mission reduction, but a bigger picture about climate change and how it's impacting livelihoods and people and communities. And so it came out more in that. So, and one thing too, just very recently, I just happened to be looking at my LinkedIn. And there's a climate technology center and network, which is an important part of the process for ensuring that developing countries kind of access to technology.
And so a post by Professor Stephen Minas is a good colleague and friend. He's also co-chair of the Technology Executive Committee. And he said that since 2010, this past year, for the first time, more women have participated in their activities than before in their events. And so that's good news.
So we see advancement made, but hopefully it's not enough. It needs to continue. And I have to say one thing I will admit that in the climate change negotiations over the years, you see many more women participating, many more diplomats. And that is also had an impact.
So given your personal experience with this, I'd love to get your opinion on this. It's been six years since those 196 parties adopted the Paris Agreement, including the US, which rejoined in 2021. How effective has it been in combating climate change in your opinion? So, the difficult question for several reasons.
One is that the Paris Agreement really is an unusual agreement, very different from the Kyoto, which was very much top down. The Kyoto Protocol basically targeted developed countries and gave them reduction targets that they had to meet the Paris Agreement created a framework for all countries. And this is very important. And while right now we look at the reports coming out, of course, we're far from meeting the target, the target goals.
So what we have to look at is did the Paris Agreement establish a system that is going to really promote the needed urgent action we need? And it's still early. And I tell you why, because the Paris Agreement created a process. First step of that process is for state, all states, not just developed, but the developing world, to prepare and submit nationally determined contributions.
And every five years, those nationally determined contributions must be progressively, they must be. Sometimes people say that Paris is a softer agreement. That's not true. They are obligated to increase their ambition every five years.
And in 2023, there's going to be a global stock taking. That is a critical milestone. It will be a critical milestone in assessing where we are and what needs to be done. So the Paris Agreement, if these systems work, hopefully it will create the necessary impetus for states to take the action they need to take.
Now, that's within the system itself, but I have to say it is encouraging to see that at the domestic level, there are many litigation cases based on Paris. And I think that is a very important agreement, I should say, that are being successfully pursued. So I think that was not intended, of course, but it certainly is important. So today we are far from meeting the Lower Mission Pathway.
We are far from claiming any success. But I think we cannot look at Paris, the Paris Agreement, as the default, indeed the Paris Agreement has created a framework, an important framework for states to cooperate. And ultimately, like in everything, it's the states. I mean, the states have to act.
And so hopefully the Paris Agreement has provided at least that very important framework and process and systems to do so. And at the same time, at the domestic level is encouraging and empowering people to call their governments to action and hold them responsible. And I think that litigation piece that you mentioned is very interesting because my first thought when reading about the Paris Agreement is, okay, as you said, it sets up these systems, but what kinds of carrots and sticks are involved if countries don't adhere to that system. And it sounds like that litigation that's happening might be one of those sticks, for example.
Absolutely. And I have to say, yes, at the end, it's true that you don't have the enforcement mechanism that Kyoto provides. There is a compliance mechanism, and that is important. But I think that the domestic level is going to be the key, the absolute key to making sure that Paris, the Paris Agreement does deliver, as well as other factors, financing for developing countries, very important, but we won't get into that.
So we don't have a lot of time. And that's why 2023, in my mind, is an absolute critical day to look at that global stock taking process. Dr. Raoul, very fascinating conversation here.
Really appreciate you sitting down with us today. Thank you. Thank you. I enjoyed it very much.
And it's so much we could still talk about, but I appreciate the time. And I appreciate the listeners who are tuning into this podcast. Well, we'll just have to have you on again soon to get more of it. Sounds like a day.
Dr. Nalifer Orell, she's written climate change, oceans and gender. You are listening to the Humanities Matter podcast. You can find more podcast episodes on Apple Podcast, Spotify and Google Podcast.