WOMEN'S CLIMATE ACTION AGENDA
& CLIMATE DECLARATION ADVOCACY
International women leaders contribute to the Women’s Climate Action Agenda - Photo via Lori Waselchuk
The Women's Earth and Climate Action Network is involved in ongoing distribution of two important documents developed by the network: the WECAN Women's Climate Declaration and the Women’s Climate Action Agenda (WCAA).
The Women's Climate Declaration, available in English, Spanish, French, Arabic and Italian, was conceived and finalized during the 2013 International Women’s Earth and Climate Summit, and has been signed by thousands of women, feminists, and allies worldwide.
The Women’s Climate Action Agenda (WCAA) was also conceived at the International Women’s Earth and Climate Summit , and was then fully drafted over the course of 2014 and released during the People’s Climate March and United Nations Climate Summit in New York City in 2014, where over 400,000 people took to the streets for climate justice. The report was updated and expanded in 2015 in preparation for the seminal Paris climate negotiations at COP21.
The WCAA has been presented and distributed to Heads of State, members of Parliaments and the U.S. Congress, the international media, social media, community organizers, climate justice movement leaders, NGOs, academic institutions and corporate CEOs.
WECAN WOMEN’S CLIMATE ACTION AGENDA
The Women’s Climate Action Agenda (WCAA) remains at the core of WECAN International’s advocacy work within United Nations climate negotiations, engagements with the media, and in mobilizing with grassroots women's climate justice organizing around the world.
The WCAA represents the synthesis of decades of academic research, policymaking and grassroots activism by hundreds of women leaders across the globe who contributed to the vision and development of the Agenda.
The comprehensive 100-page document analyzes the ways in which industrialization, fossil fuel combustion, land use change and social and ecological exploitation have compromised the planet's equilibrium, and presents key solutions derived from a women’s climate justice framework.
The WCAA includes a comprehensive analysis around women and climate impacts, and sections on health and climate, trade, climate finance, extractive energy and a just transition to 100% renewable energy, forests and biodiversity, oceans and fresh-water, seeds and agriculture, cities and ecovillages, Indigenous Rights, Rights of Nature, and shifting our cultural narratives. Each section encompasses background analysis, concrete action plans and policy recommendations.
Global women leaders work together to develop the WCAA and Declaration during the International Women’s Earth and Climate Summit - Photo via Lori Waselchuk
Osprey Orielle Lake presents the WCAA during the United Nation COP21 climate talks in Paris
WOMEN’S CLIMATE DECLARATION
Global women leaders sign the Women’s Climate Declaration during the International Women’s Earth and Climate Summit - Photo via Lori Waselchuk
The ‘Women's Climate Declaration: Women of the World Call for Urgent Action on Climate Change & Sustainability Solutions’ is a bold women’s climate justice manifesto which exposes the root causes of the climate crisis, presents key demands for climate justice, and calls for systemic change with women’s leadership at the forefront.
The Declaration is available in English, Spanish, French, Arabic and Italian, and has been signed and shared widely across the globe.
The WECAN Climate Declaration was chosen by the Global Call to Climate Action as one of ten micro site sign-on’s in a collective signature campaign than connected more than ten millions signatures in advance of UN Climate Negotiations in Paris, December 2015. The WECAN Declaration was previously presented in Warsaw, Poland at the UNFCCC in November 2013.
Jane Goodall of the Jane Goodall Institute signs the Women’s Climate Declaration at the 2013 WECAN International Women’s Earth and Climate Summit - Photo via Lori Waselchuk
Vandana Shiva of Navdanya, India signs the Women’s Climate Declaration at the 2013 WECAN International Women’s Earth and Climate Summit - Photo via Lori Waselchuk
We are the mothers and the grandmothers, sisters and daughters, nieces and aunts, who stand together to care for all generations across our professions, affiliations and national identities.
We are teachers and scientists, farmers and fishers, healers and helpers, workers and business peoples, writers and artists, decision-makers and activists, leaders and thinkers. We work in the halls of power, the halls of faith and the halls of our homes.
We are gathering to raise our voices to advocate for an Earth-respecting cultural narrative, one of “restore, respect, replenish” and to replace the narrative of “domination, depletion and destruction” of nature.
We are committed to a transition from a future of peril to a future of promise, to rally the women around the world to join together in action at all levels until the climate crisis is solved.
— Excerpt from the ‘Women’s Climate Declaration’