COP31 Base Camp Summit
Sydney November 2023

Australia is planning a bid to co-host COP31 with Pacific Nations. In preparation for the quite strong likelihood that this bid will be successful, Impact X called a 1-day workshop of NGOs and community groups to plan how to engage with an Australian-Pacific COP.

Janet Salisbury attended this event on 1 November. Representation of women/gender-inclusive processes was not one of the topics for inclusion in planning for this event and Janet advocated for its inclusion at further planning events.

COP 28, United Arab Emirates, December 2023

Support for She Changes Climate’s COP28 initiatives

Throughout 2023, WCC has supported She Changes Climate’s (SCC) COP28 initiatives. These have included:

• a letter to all country government negotiators to pledge a 50:50 representation in their team for COP28, and to also support SCC’s call for the COP Presidency to have two Co-Chairs – one woman and one man.

• a proposal for a multistakeholder dialogue to be co-hosted by Australia and others – and possibly held in the Australian Pavilion.

• proposals to the Australia to include SCC Ambassador and Torres Strait Islander, Tishiko King, in the Australian delegation.

SCC met with members of the Australian Government COP negotiating team in Berlin in June. Kirsten Anker and Janet Salisbury met via Zoom with SCC Co-Founder and Co-Director, Elise Buckle, in July to discuss how WCC could assist with these initiatives.

In another initiative, She Changes Climate hosted a global online women-led summit on 21 November. This was the second pre-COP online summit they have hosted, the first being in November 2022 in the lead-up to COP27. Janet Salisbury has been actively engaging with this initiative on behalf of WCC.

Advocacy with the Department of Climate Change, Energy and Water

Ahead of COP28, Janet Salisbury and Kirsten Anker met with members of the Department of Climate Change, Energy and Water (DCCEW) Climate Negotiations & Engagement Branch to share the WCC Charter for change, including the need for a gender-inclusive COP negotiation process. The Australian delegation to COP28 has equal representation of women, but we stressed the need for women’s voices at all levels of the negotiations and requested the Australian Government sign the SCC pledge, which included support for a woman and man as co-presidents of COP.

We also described our proposal for mediated multistakeholder dialogue to resolve the ‘climate wars’ across different perspectives and party lines within Australia, and advocated for SCC’s proposal for Australia to co-host a multistakeholder dialogue at the Australian Pavilion at COP28. The DCCEW agreed to take these proposals forward.

We subsequently heard that the 50:50 pledge and multistakeholder dialogue proposal, while informally considered, were not formally supported. The SCC multistakeholder dialogue event will be held in the Women’s Pavilion. Tishiko King has received a government ‘overflow badge’ (essentially an entry ticket) to the event.

Supporting for Angelica Mantikas, WCC youth representative, to attend COP28

WCC is supporting member Angelica Mantikas to attend COP28. Angelica is a board member and project lead for Australian Youth For International Climate Engagement Incorporated (AYFICE), and has founded the inaugural Oceania Climate Stories project - a publication compiling the perspectives, stories, experiences, and voices of youth from across the continent. AYFICE is sending four youth delegates, including Angelica, to COP28 to share their stories in person.

Angelica joined the WCC earlier this year and has brought a valuable youth perspective. Internationally, women are increasingly mobilising around action on climate change and WCC is excited to be a part of this movement. Angelica's attendance at COP28 will help develop our existing networks and open up new ones.

Find out more

COP27, Egypt, November 2022

Collaboration with She Changes Climate

Ahead of COP 27, WCC collaborated with She Changes Climate (SCC) to obtain signatures on an open letter to the COP president asking for equal representation of women in the Presidency team.

SCC co-founder, Elise Buckle, spoke online from Geneva at our National Congress of Women event in Canberra in September 2022 and described this and other SCC initiatives to promote 50:50 representation of women at COP.

On 4 November 2022, SCC hosted a 24-hour round the world ‘Women Declare Emergency and Raise Climate Ambition Summit’. WCC Founder, Janet Salisbury, moderated the opening session with guest speakers from Australia and the Pacific. Read further details of this event below.

Read the Summit Brief taken to COP27

COP26, Scotland, November 2021

Ahead of the COP26 meeting in Glasgow in November 2021, the WCC Hub group sent letters to every MP (see Letters and meetings with MPs).

Independent women's organisation wants more Australian women at climate talks and urges stronger emissions pledge
22 September 2021