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

The 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 7th 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.