01 October 2009, Bangkok Thailand - Chanting “Climate Justice, Gender Justice, now!”,  women and men activists from Asia-Pacific gathered in front of the United Nations (UN) Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) building despite the rains for the Asian Women’s Quilt on Climate Change while the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change meeting was ongoing inside the building.

Patches of colorful images and symbols from Bangladesh, India, Mongolia, Thailand and the Philippines were sewn together to form quilts and displayed this morning outside the UN ESCAP building. The quilts articulated the impacts and effects of climate change to women’s already increased vulnerability and multiple burden.

“Rural and indigenous women have the least carbon prints yet they bear the biggest brunt of the effects of climate change,” Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) and AMIHAN representative Tess Vistro said. “We call on the governments to give priority to the protection of rural and indigenous women’s livelihoods and sources of sustenance and food security,” she added. 

“Women and children, especially marginalized sectors such as rural and poor peoples are most vulnerable to the impacts of extreme weather events, climate-related natural disasters, rising sea levels, rise of climate-sensitive diseases and the like,” the People’s Action on Climate Watch statement said.

The group also asked for deep and drastic cuts on greenhouse gas emissions particularly of the United States, the European Union and Japan. Focus on the negotiations should be on protecting the people's needs and welfare, especially women’s human rights, reducing existing vulnerabilities from the local to the regional levels, and reviewing and repealing policies, frameworks and programmes which contribute to the cumulative effect of reducing people's and women’s capacity to adapt to climate change impacts.

The quilt project was spearheaded by the Center for Environmental Concerns-Philippines (CEC-Phils), Sustainable Development Foundation (SDF) of Thailand, Philippine Climate Watch Alliance (PCWA) and the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) with the help of Artist Project Earth-United Kingdom.

People’s Action for Climate Change (PACC) c/o Center for Environmental Concerns-Philippines (CEC-Phils) -  cecphils@gmail.com

Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) - apwld@apwld.org, riwwenpo@apwld.org