May the She-Force be with you
Dear everyone,
Thank you for your continued interest in our ongoing campaign on She Changes Climate.
We've got some exciting updates to share with you and ways you can support us, including donating to our crowdfunder to help fund our upcoming social media campaign and PR.
While the brand and the group of SheChangesClimate has had an enormous impact, sadly this government is only paying lip service to our campaign – a similar tactic to much of its other green/gender activities.
Since our talks with Alok, Peter and Anne-Marie:
We offered a long list of potential women who could be selected for the UK COP26 leadership team – no action.
We have been promised since January “watch this space” for high level female appointments – nothing.
Cleo Watson has not replied to further requests for information.
Internal contacts have not replied despite chasing.
We have tried several avenues from direct to indirect (B-Team, Women of the World etc) - and the net result is no change.
To be clear our aim was to achieve.
Gender parity at the top of the UK COP26 leadership team
High visibility with women sitting at the same table with men and being seen to do so
Legacy so that younger women could follow in their footsteps and SEE the possibilities.
We feel these have not even begun to be addressed.
Our conclusion is that although there is still a lot of work to do, we simply cannot give up. We are firing up our campaign again and we would love your support.
We have had great success on social media and in events, interviews and articles throughout the last 4 months with She Changes Climate – particularly for International Women’s day – so the SCC brand and campaign can and should continue.
We have a voice to use to amplify the gender gap and we have agreed to continue using this to keep driving the message home. We also have a position that allows us more liberty to be outspoken about the lack of women in the COP26 leadership team.
For example, Nigel Topping posted his favourite reads on climate and (without even considering) posted only male authors. We are offering the range of women authors on the subject that he missed.
Articles published this month on SCC:
Climate & Capital Media: 'Ahead of COP26, activists ask where are the women' written by Blaire Palese.
World War Zero Magazine: COP26 Leadership: If not women. then who?Written by SCC co-founder Bianca Pitt.
Instagram star, Alice Aedy launching her Mother Nature series with SCC co-founder Antoinette Vermilye:
Princess Esmeralda de Belgique promoting her new book “Quel Monde pour Demain”:
Global Dimension: All change! This train terminates here by Cindy Forde.
The Lancet: A planetary health blind spot: the untapped potential of women to safeguard nature and human resilience in LMICs by Nicole de Paula.
Please retweet, share on social media and comment.
Keep posting and amplifying on social media to keep up the messaging – any time you see a post on women and climate change please tag:
We must make a pact to support each other, also virtually. Men do this very well and keep retweeting each other – we must proactively post and support posts by other women – please make a point of identifying and promoting women’s messaging 20 minutes a week.
By empowering women we empower men – so we are opening up signatures to She Changes Climate to men as well. Therefore, please share our website with men and encourage them to sign and share to show their support. There are active ways men can help move this forward and we will be posting on that shortly.
To raise funds for social media and PR for She Changes Climate, a wonderful woman volunteer has stepped forward to set our crowdfunder by offering her services for an hour of one-on-one leadership counselling.
You may donate any sum you wish but £100 will buy a session that can be used by yourself or gifted to someone else. Please share widely. Thank you.
Coming up next is the G7 summit and we hope to be an active voice and presence in the messaging around this event.
We need more women at the top.
This messaging is vital to make it clear that the outcome of these climate agreements can only be half as good with only half the planet represented.
We'll be in touch soon with our plan of action for the G7 and how you can join our fight to get equal representation of women on the COP26 UK leadership team.
All the very best,
Antoinette Vermilye
Co-founder
SHEChangesClimate