To mark the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day the Committee today hosted a lunchtime conference on the theme of ‘Women and Development; the Road to Durban’. A joint initiative of EESC President Staffan Nilsson and Vice-President Anna Maria Darmanin, our guest speaker was Anne Bergenfelt, member of the private office of Connie Hedergaard, the European Commission member responsible for climate action. To understand why women have a particularly important role to play in the context of fighting climate change one has to look to the developing world as well as the developed one. Modest changes to cooking habits and the introduction of more efficient wood-burning stoves can have major consequences for many people’s living and working environments.