A gendered analysis of delegate profiles, environmental knowledge and pro-environmental behaviour at COP 17

abstract

The 17^th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 7^th Session of the Conference of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol was held in Durban (South Africa) from 28 November to 8 December in 2011. Annual COP negotiations focus on the operationalisation of the UNFCCC's objectives and serve as the main platform to deliberate on issues related to climate change and how concerns and impacts are addressed. Women and men can differ in their environmental knowledge and behaviour and these differences can challenge the collective's conceptualisation of climate change. However, there is a dearth of primary research on COP delegate demographics, including gender, and even less on gendered comparisons of delegate environmental knowledge and behaviour, which this study focused on. Five hundred and twenty-five delegates were interviewed during COP 17 and the data was subjected to a gendered analysis to unpack differences and commonalities between male and female delegates' environmental knowledge and behaviour. The analysis revealed very few gender-based differences in environmental knowledge and behaviour. The majority of male and female delegates possessed a good knowledge of the various aspects related to climate change but this was not clearly evident in the results on their engagement in environmental best practices and their intention to offset carbon emissions.

keywords:

• climate change
• COP 17
• environmental knowledge
• gender
• pro-environmental behaviour

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sershen

SERSHEN is presently a lecturer in Plant Ecophysiology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN, South Africa). He has a BSc in Biology, a BSc Honours in Plant Physiology, an MSc in Seed Biology and a PhD in Cryobiology and Plant Physiology from UKZN. He is involved in numerous community-based urban agriculture projects and his research focusses on Plant Germplasm Conservation, Plant Responses to Climate Change, Climate Policy, Ecotourism, Renewable Energy and Urban Agriculture and Ecology. Email: [email protected]

Kovilen Moodley

KOVILEN MOODLEY is a Masters graduate from the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN, South Africa). His masters focused on tourism in relation to climate change, with his broader field of study being Environmental Management. Email: [email protected]