We use some essential cookies to make this website work.

We’d like to set additional cookies to understand how you use GOV.UK, remember your settings and improve government services.

We also use cookies set by other sites to help us deliver content from their services.

We use some essential cookies to make this website work.

We’d like to set additional cookies to understand how you use GOV.UK, remember your settings and improve government services.

We also use cookies set by other sites to help us deliver content from their services.

Thank you, Renata for that kind introduction, to our esteemed panellists, and to you, our audience, for joining our important discussion today on gender equality and climate change.

As the COP26 Adaptation & Resilience Champion, I have met with some amazing female activists, advocates and leaders to hear their views and ideas about how we can ensure that gender is at the centre of our efforts to adapt and build resilience.

This is essential, because historically marginalised groups are, indisputably and primarily as a result of wider discrimination, socio-cultural barriers, and inequality, more vulnerable to those climate impacts.

This includes but is not limited to those living in poverty, people with disabilities, youth, indigenous peoples, and of course, women and girls.

Women and children are significantly more likely than men to die during climate-related disasters, and they comprise up to 80% of those displaced by natural disasters.

Women constitute more of the world’s poor and are often directly dependent on threatened environmental resources as their primary source of food and income.

Women often don’t have the same access to other resources – such as education, information, land and credit – that would help them to respond to a changing climate.

And climate change also worsens existing inequalities, increasing gender-based violence and the exploitation of women and girls, particularly for the most marginalised.

Around 12 million more young girls are thought to have been married off as the frequency of natural disasters has increased.

It also impacts girls’ education, as after natural disasters, girls are often the first to drop out of school to help their families.

It could be easy, in light of this incontrovertible evidence, to paint a picture of women and girls, as mere victims of climate change.

However, we know, and the panellists here today can attest to the fact that women and girls – as educators, decision makers and advocates, at all levels – are critical in the fight against the climate crisis.

When we take action to confront climate change, in our communities, in our countries and organisations, we should, of course, be mindful of the ways in which climate change affects men and women differently.

And we should work to actively promote gender equality and to empower women and girls.

Their insights and experiences are invaluable if we are to find the right solutions. We must therefore do all we can to amplify their voices.

This will not only improve gender equality, but it will also lead to more sustainable, better outcomes for the climate and our societies.

140 million years of productivity are lost annually because of the hours that women and girls spend using slower, more polluting cooking methods. Just try and get your heads around that statistic.

By investing in clean cooking solutions, emissions will be reduced, and girls will have more time to pursue education.

There is also evidence of better outcomes when women are brought into adaptation and resilience action.

Lower death rates following on from hurricanes in Central America, for example, have been ascribed to women’s involvement in preparedness education.

So through our Presidency of COP26, we will deliver on the Gender Action Plan agreed by all countries at the last COP.

For us, this means committing to integrating gender equality and inclusion into climate action, and enabling women, girls and marginalised peoples to be a critical part of the fight.

And I see this is an essential part of my role.

I am committed to ensuring that our adaptation action is gender-responsive.

Without actively addressing the unequal power dynamics that drive vulnerability – including gender inequality – adaptation efforts risk failing to reach their core objectives, or even further exacerbating marginalisation and climate vulnerability.

So the UK has also supported women’s empowerment and leadership within our clean energy sector, investing in women’s skills and setting specific targets for diversity and gender equality.

Prioritising gender equality in our mitigation work will help us deliver net zero by 2050.

And we know that education of girls goes hand in hand with their empowerment.

So we have set an ambitious global target to get 40 million more girls into school.

Ensuring 12 years of quality education for girls will support girls, their families and their communities to be more resilient in the face of those climate shocks.

And we also see gender as a key part of our work on climate finance.

And we’ve worked to fund efforts to integrate gender and social inclusion into climate change planning and budgeting processes.

Because climate finance can only be effective if it gets to the people who need it most.

All of this is why I’ve convened this group of experts and advocates here today.

We look forward to learning from your experiences integrating gender equality for better climate outcomes.

We want to know what challenges you faced and how you overcame them.

Our panellists have led inspirational work in this area, both internationally and here in the UK.

Whether that’s through a project working to embed gender into international climate programming, or by ensuring climate finance reaches grassroots communities.

Let’s learn from them today and resolve to apply their lessons to our own work.

After all, now is the time to close the gap on both gender equality and climate action.

Thank you Renata.

In our last episode of the #DynamicUK webinar series, the British High Commission in Cyprus talks to Flo Buckeridge, Senior Producer for National Theatre Live. The webinar focuses on the National Theatre’s creative response to the COVID-19 pandemic and how they continue to innovate on their engagement with their audience, bringing theatre closer to the people around the globe.

Flo Buckeridge, talked to Meropi Moyseos, an experienced local journalist covering the field of culture, about the immediate response of the National Theatre, National Theatre Live and National Theatre at Home, the streaming platform which launched in December.

Throughout this insightful talk, Flo Buckeridge, discusses what’s happened since NT closed down because of the pandemic, the importance of sharing their work and world-known productions, as well as the value of engaging with their audience. Moreover, the NT’s Senior Producer, discusses National Theatre at Home, the availability of the National Theatre Collection, how NT Live returns to cinemas and the filming of Olivier in the Round and Romeo and Juliet, produced by NT.

Commenting on how the National Theatre responded to the pandemic, Buckeridge states:

Well, I think like everyone in the world, we didn’t know how long this was going to last for, and we didn’t know if we were closing for just a few weeks or whether it was going to be much longer than that. I think we all thought that it was much more likely to be a shorter period than it has been, so we’ve kind of had to think quickly, I guess about ways in which we continued to engage with audiences.

Because everything we did, from our cinema screenings, to our touring internationally, to being in the West End in London, and then of course, our Southbank theatre, had to be closed. And we were very-very fortunate with having done NT Live, having a back catalogue of high quality recordings that we thought we wanted to make available to audiences in the broadest way that we could and the fastest way that we could.

So very quickly, we created what we called “National Theatre at Home” and it started in April. We made a recording of “One Man, Two Guvnors”, available on YouTube for free, it had a premiere moment at 7 o’clock (GMT) on a Thursday, which was in keeping with the NT Live performance time, which is always at 7 o’clock on a Thursday, and we made it available for audiences to watch around the world from their homes.

The online streaming was thought to last for about four weeks, but it turned out to be much longer than expected, as the pandemic is still on the rise and the whole world is on lockdown. Eventually 16 productions were made available to the public and the whole program ran for 16 weeks. Through this initiative, the National Theatre was able to keep engaging with its audiences, and they reached a total global audience of 15 million people that watched those recordings.

For NT Live, we are very sure that what we are filming isn’t a film of ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’… When we know that we are going to film a production for NT Live, we don’t ask the directors, or the creative teams to change anything about the production for the broadcast. We would come in and film around what exists and we would make it work.

There are challenging things from a filming perspective – that’s kind of our challenge to resolve with the director. And, whereas we are still making something for television, when you know that the output it’s only going to be seen that way, there isn’t going to be a live audience, that’s quite a shift in thinking and planning, and allows you to approach it in a different way.”

Having worked at the National Theatre since 2013, Flo has produced many broadcasts working across National Theatre productions but also regularly with partner theatres across the UK. Flo has responsibility for ensuring projects maximise their financial contribution and increase audience reach. Flo oversees the production of the broadcasts including from production through to budget, rights and contracts and the distribution of NT Live into cinemas globally.

Discover more and gain insights on National Theatre Live and National Theatre at Home, by watching the entire webinar in the video below.

#DynamicUK – Flo Buckeridge, National Theatre

The British High Commission opened up an invitation to six highly innovative British professionals from various industries to share their knowledge and expertise on how the current pandemic affected their fields.

Check out our YouTube channel for all of the exciting discussions that took place in this webinar series.