According to the UNFCCC, the official count of participants that attended to COP23 on behalf of a country (also referred to as ‘party’), totaled over 9,200 representatives. This number is down from the 11,300 registered participants published in a provisional list a month earlier. It is also much lower than the delegates that attended COP21 in Paris, however the stakes in 2015 were much higher than this year. However, this year’s UN Climate Negotiation focused on detailing the plan or “rulebook” to implement the Paris Agreement which has also taken much time and deliberation.

The countries with the highest number of delegates attending COP23 came from African countries, Cote d’Ivoire sent 492 participants with Guinea (355), Democratic Republic of the Congo (340), Congo (308) and Morocco (253) following (Carbon Brief, 2017). These numbers contrast with the size of developed country delegations: France sending 177, EU with 76, and the US only 48. Countries can, and often do, give some of their badges to NGOs from their country, so these numbers may be misleading.

Because all parties, journalists, observers, and participants must be registered and cleared by the UNFCCC, they can keep track of the totals and gender balance of the climate talks. The UN’s documents are public on their website, and my colleagues from Duke University appear on this list http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2017/cop23/eng/inf04.pdf on page 247. However, I question the accuracy of their process, because myself and several others from Duke University do not appear on this document.

Because I did attend COP23, despite what the list says, I was keen to observe gender balance during the negotiation meetings, press conferences and proceedings. TheFijian presidency had made gender a key agenda item, supporting a Gender Day in the Bonn Zone and the Gender Action Plan, which promotes gender equality and leadership in the international negotiation and policy process, and gender-responsiveness and capacity building into climate action implementation.

From the numbers the UNFCCC provided, on average 38 percent of country delegations were female. This was reflected in the negotiation meetings I attended, with women successfully represented, but largely in the minority. Albania, Guyana and Latvia sent all-female delegations, in contrast to Eritrea, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan who sent all male representatives (Carbon Brief). However, these countries sent quite small delegations, less than 5 people.

Although adoption of the Gender Action Plan is a ‘win’ for COP23, progress is slow. Perhaps this can be said for all areas of COP23 achievements, but I maintain a positive attitude, that any progress is still progress.

 

Gender Action Plan: http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2017/sbi/eng/l29.pdf

Carbon Brief. (2017). Analysis: Which Countries have sent the most delegates to COP23? Retrieved from: https://www.ecowatch.com/countries-delegates-cop23-2507136533.html.