Breaking out of the Gender Silo, Women Activists Demand Demilitarization and the Rejection of Carbon Trading at COP29

The role of women in society is at a precarious crossroads.

Women have made major strides in recent years, from the pro-abortion rights Green Wave in Latin America to the rise of female political leaders such as Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum. But the U.S. election was a different story — here, the winning candidate was accused of campaigning on a relentlessly misogynistic platform, and his victory threatens to impose U.S. anti-abortion rights restrictions on the rest of the world.

There has been no shortage of post-mortems examining the role that sexism may have played in Kamala Harris’s defeat. But on the ground, the work goes on. In Baku, Azerbaijan, feminist activists from around the world descended on COP29, the annual United Nations climate conference, to demand that the UN and national governments come up with a response to climate change that puts women at the center.

“For so long, feminists have been categorical in demanding the feminist future — the future free from oppression, free from exploitation, the future where everyone can live a life of dignity, the future where the well-being of people and the planet is guaranteed,” Mwanahamisi Singano, the director of policy at the Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), said at a press conference setting out their agenda. “That future will not come from the air. We need to build.”

Singano and her companions face an uphill battle. They complain that COP, which runs this year from Nov. 11-22, has been captured by the fossil fuel lobby — the conference has been held two years in a row now in countries that are widely described as petrostates.