Mary Robinson on Women Leading Climate Justice

She's also served as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights as well as the Special Envoy of the U N Secretary General for Climate Change, and today she continues to use her power for purpose as a leading advocate for climate justice. Mary sat down with Milan at the Seneca Women Forum at Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the conversation

is just as relevant today. Listen to why climate change is a woman's issue, why women's leadership is crucial to creating the world we want to see, and what every one of us can do to help all women succeed. Enjoy our conversation and stick around for our top takeaways. President Mary Robinson, the first woman President of Ireland. M So, Mary, you not only were president of your country, you were

the High UN Commissioner for Human Rights. You are currently the U n Special Envoy for Climate This has been a very busy time for Mary here in New York. You were the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. And if I go on and on as I surely could, we wouldn't have much of a conversation. So I will go to a sub jeck that I think is much on our mind today and one in which you are

an extraordinary leader, and that's climate change. We have been horrified by the power and force of the recent hurricanes and the destruction that lay in the wake of them, the catastrophic fire storms and droughts that are cropping up in places that never experienced that, And I think many of us are very very concerned about are we doing enough? What could we be doing, what should we be doing.

You have been involved in this issue for many, many years now, and maybe we could start this conversation about how you began, Where did it start with you, and how did you become involved in it? Well, Milan, it's nice of you to say many many years, but actually

I'm a relative newcomer. I served as you and High Commissioner for Human Rights for five years from two seven to two thousand and two, and I never made any significant speech on climate because it has been dealt with by another part of the u N. We were in silos and it was only after my term as High Commissioner I established a small organization here in New York called Realizing Rights to work on economic and social rights in African countries. Had colleagues and at the Aspen Institute

in Washington, night colleagues in Geneva. Small number, but we were working on right to health, right to food. And I was also unrepresident of ox FAM, so ox FAM wire wheeling me out as well around Africa, and from two thousand and two to two thousand and eight I kept hearing this constant phrase, things are so much worse,

and the worst was we don't know. Went to sel we don't know, went to harvest we we we saw and then the rainy season doesn't come, or we get monsoon rains when we shouldn't and flash flooding and then long periods of drought and all over Africa. And this was way before in the developed world we fully realized that climate change wasn't something of the future, it was now. And I remember being before Copenhagen OXFAM organized these hearings

with climate witnesses, if you like. And I was on a jury with my dear friend, our spishop two two, and we had five African farmers talking to us, and I saw that too, too, was getting very depressed at their very real stories of how bad it was in different parts of Africa. And I said, well, look, I come from the west of Ireland. My father was a doctor and he used to bring me out on long medical calls because I was the only girl wedged between

four brothers. That's how I got interested in human rights and gender and all that. But but you know, we would meet the farming community and inevitably, whatever the weather, the farmers would complain. So I said to these five African farmers, you know, is this just a little bit worse? But you know, are you just complaining like farmers do?

And I remember Constance of Kellett, who became a friend afterwards, from a northern Uganda rising tall woman, rising to a full house and saying, in a very deliberate voice, this is outside our experience. And it was a very telling phrase, because the experience of a small village is probably a hundred and fifty years if you count grandparents talking to grandchildren,

talking to their children. You know. So there's a long experience and this was outside their experience and it has become worse and we now see the devastation, as you say, in the Caribbean. So one of the things you have really focused on in this process, besides the justice component, which is incredibly important, is women's leadership in climate Can you tell us a little bit more about what we

can be doing, what we should be doing well. I established a foundation on climate justice because I could see the injustice of climate change, the disproportionate impact on poor countries and poor communities and rich countries. The poor communities that were hit by Katrina, that were hit by Sunday that took much longer to recover, that have been hitting now in Florida and in Texas and all the more so in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands and

the rest of the of the Caribbean. And who's picking up the pieces? That's what I learned. Who puts food on the table, who has to go further into out for water, and who forms a women's group to try and make her community resilient. That's happening all over the world. Women are becoming the frontline defenders of their communities in the context of climate change. And what we decided in can Kun, the Conference on Climate just after Copenhagen. Copenhagen

was regarded as a sort of failure. It was just saved from being a failure by an accord, but it wasn't within the UN system. To the great credit, Mexico in Cancun brought it back into the UN system and started the road, the long road to Paris of several conferences.

And in Cancun we realized that three women had presided over conferences, and Connie Headguard had presided at Copenhagen, and down Mark might and Patricia Espinosa and was going to preside or it was in the process presiding in can Kuhn and Mighty Masheban would have the next one in Durban, and they it was actually Patricia Espinosa said, why don't we form a troika of women leaders and make it

women ministers, women heads of agencies. And we decided to have a few male ministers, but we keep men decidedly in their place. You know, a minority, a supportive minority, which they should be. And U and it's become a very real focal point within the system of these annual climate conferences, the most important of which, of course was Paris.

And we've met before these and we've planned and because these are women ministers they're at the table, and women heads of agencies, they know how to move that agenda. And we've just had a meeting here that you were at. We meet at seven in the morning, key to getting business seven in the morning out by about eight thirty, and it's very good. People turn up, we get our business done and then they go off to do their

their other business. And we have managed to get gender parity as a principle in the cop we're now working on a gender action plan. And why is it important For the reasons that I was giving, It is just so starkly evident that when you undermine poor livelihoods, it is women who literally have to pick up the pieces.

So the troika of women leaders at the ministerial heads of agency level are now focusing on getting grassroots women in at the table so they can tell their stories because a lot of the climate discussion has become very technical and very abstract, and if you don't have the real human story there people don't understand, and we've been successful in bringing that story more and more, and I would love to see it really part of the actual

gender way of going forward. It's a women's issue as much as any other women and the stories that women can tell as frontline defenders are really impactful. They change in the dynamic, so from climate to high level political leadership, this is one of the areas women succeeding at the highest levels in politics, including parliaments, including so many other critical positions. It's the most difficult place for us still, it's where we've made the least progress. Do you have

a sense of how we can accelerate things a little bit? Well, I can certainly share what was my feeling when I was elected President of Ireland, and I felt it was so important to do it proudly as a woman, an advantage to be a woman that I drew on the strength. Now, the presidency in Ireland is not like here in the United States or in many other countries. It's an non executive presidency, so it's actually a more subtle form of power.

It's a moral leadership because the real political power is with the Prime Minister, whom we call the Tichuk and the government, the cabinet government. But the president has real powers under the constitution and most importantly is directly elected by the people. And that is what I found so interesting and so intriguing and what and I found it really important to understand the importance of symbols. And I said on the night of my election, and all the

incredible excitement because I was going against the odds. There were odds of a hundred to one against me winning, and I didn't even back myself, you know. But but on that night I said that I would put a light in the window of my official residence for all of those who had to emigrate from Ireland. Over the years and over the decades, that light took on a

life of its own. It was in the kitchen, you could see it from the public road, and it's somehow helped to shape an Irish identity, helped us to build a peace process and understand that we had to be open to the other, open more and um, you know, it was, it was and it was very good for me because when I became High Commissioner for a Human Rights it was a harder rule. It was a more role of being in some way responsible for leadership on human rights around the world. But I had no big stick,

I had no enforcement. I could only use the moral voice, and so that was a continuation success. But I do believe that, you know, women in leadership is changing, for example Africa particularly, I mean I'm seeing women really taking leadership positions. Unfortunately, not enough at the presidential level. When Ellen Johnson Surly step tests down, there will be no women president in Africa. There'll be two vice presidents in the whole continent of fifty four countries. So you know,

we have a lot of work to do. But there are a lot of women ministers, there is a lot of sense. Rassi Michelle, who's a fellow elder with me, the elders that Nelson Madela brought together. She is a powerful voice for women leader women's leadership of an economic sense as well, and I think women in the business

community can do a lot more. I'm glad you touched on the business community, and unfortunately the clock is going very quickly here and I I wanted to ask if there were was one bit of advice you could give us for how we could fast forward, and maybe you could get business into your answer as well, what would that be, what could we take away? I think it's something that we all know. Women need mentoring, Young women

need mentoring, Women in the workplace need mentoring. So look, you're a very amazing group of women leaders here in the audience. Each of you should be mentoring. Many of you probably are mentoring. And know, you know, women like Mindy Lubber has done a huge amount for climate and is a great leader of women. The networking is also part of that, and we saw in the clip earlier

the importance of the support group. But you know, even if you go out of here today and say, I'm going to actually be more alert to one or two women in my workplace, in my enterprise, in my whatever it is, and just you know, give them that support. Men don't mentor in a vocal but you watch, you know, when there's you know, a male boss, the young men come in and they become like their male boss, and the male boss notices them more than the young women in his You know, it's a it's a kind of

inherent mentoring. They don't have to talk about it because they're men. But we have to, we have to find a way very strongly to redress the patriarchy to redress them Santoni, which is here in society. It's an underlying reality of power and to change that we have to be more supportive of each other and more supportive of mentoring young women. So please do that because that will

make a difference. Okay, And I think that's a great point to end on because we're going to talk some more about how we need to change that narrative and that paradigm. So Mary, thank you for this, for all that you do hate her advice, You'll never go wrong, and we truly will make a difference together. And I can be busy in my old age, you know. Okay, stay tuned for our takeaways after this break. What a

great conversation with Mary Robinson. To learn more about her work, go to the Mary Robinson Foundation and also check out Mary's podcast, Mothers of Invention. Here are my top takeaways. First, be a light that inspires others to pursue their passion and beat the odds. Mary was told that she couldn't be elected President of Ireland. Her odds were a hundred to one, but she went for it anyway and put her own unique stamp on history. Second, understand that climate

change is a woman's issue. Women are disproportionately affected by climate change and are also critical to the solution. Help spread the word about Mary's work and the work of other women at the FOE for of Climate Justice. Lastly, if we want to see more women in leadership, there is something each of us can do. Be a mentor to a young woman. Whether it's five minutes a month or five hours, your support is crucial to empowering the

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