Episode Thirty Nine: What if the leadership team for COP26 were 50% women?

Rob Hopkins

Usually our podcasts aren’t that topical, you can hopefully listen to them at any time and they are still relevant. Today’s is not like that. It is being released just 6 days before the beginning of COP26, the vitally important climate summit happening in Glasgow. The world’s governments will be coming together for 2 weeks to, hopefully, reach some kind of binding agreement that might give the world at least a fighting chance of preventing runaway climate change. There’s one problem though. On a planet where over half the population is female, the leadership team put together by the UK government, who are hosting these talks, is almost exclusively male. Yes, you heard that right. And yet, climate change is an issue that impacts women more than men. It disproportionately impacts their livelihoods, the levels of violence they face, their educational opportunities and much more. Yet we know that involving the diversity of a population in making big decisions that affect them can lead to far greater public support, not to mention better ideas. Research also shows that women understand climate change better than men, are more open to change and to big ideas, and bring a more compassionate approach to decisionmaking. I'm joined to explore this by the fabulous Nameerah Hameed and by Bianca Pitt, both of, among other things, #SheChangesClimate. Enjoy!