Gender and Climate Change: How Women and Girls Disproportionately Experience the Effects of Climate Change, and How a Gender-Focused Initiative is Key to Successful Climate Action.
Written by Gracie Banny, Young Professionals Intern, UN Women USA LA
How does climate change affect women and girls?
Across the world, women face a seemingly unsolvable paradox; They depend more on — yet have less access to — natural resources, all while bearing a disproportionate responsibility for securing food, water, and fuel for their families. As the most important employment sector for women in low and lower-middle-income countries, agriculture plays a critical role in the relationship between women and climate change. In developing countries, approximately two-thirds of the female labor force are engaged in agricultural work, with that figure exceeding 90 percent in many African countries. Climate change, as the leading cause and greatest contributor to world hunger, malnutrition, exposure to disease, and declining access to water, unquestionably aggravates the work of women across the world. Women often act as the primary procurers of resources for their families, and during periods of drought or erratic rainfall, young girls often leave school in order to mitigate the increased burden of agricultural work. In this way, climate change acts as a ‘threat multiplier’, escalating social, political, and economic tensions. As a result, women and girls become increasingly vulnerable to all forms of gender-based violence, including conflict-related sexual violence, human trafficking, child marriage, and other forms of violence. Furthermore, women are less likely to survive environmental disasters due to long-standing disparities in mobility and access to information, resources, and relief, as well as services and healthcare, resulting in the creation and preservation of a vicious cycle of vulnerability. Take for example the mass migration out of Mexico due to the desertification of dryland nations, with over 600,000 people migrating annually. The migratory consequences of such environmental conditions have resulted in higher death rates for women as a direct result of their socioeconomic status, behavioral restrictions, and inadequate access to information.
How is a gender-based initiative essential to successful climate action? And how can these changes be implemented?
Four areas have been identified by the UN as essential in response to climate change: mitigation, which aims to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions at a safe level, adaptation, which involves reducing vulnerability and building resistance in key sectors such as water and agriculture, as well as technology, and financing, which are key to successful implementation. All of these areas must systematically and effectively address gender-specific impacts of climate change — including but not limited to food security, agriculture, biodiversity, water, health, and peace and security. Financing mechanisms must reflect women’s priorities and needs, with active participation of women in the development of such funding as well as its allocation, particularly on local levels. Additionally, gender-sensitive investments must be made in order to ensure successful programs for adaptation and mitigation. Furthermore, technological developments must take into account women’s specific priorities, needs and roles, and make full use of their knowledge and expertise, especially that of indigenous knowledge and traditional practices. To ensure the participation of women in climate change initiatives, gender inequalities in access to resources, including credit, information, and technology must be taken into account.
Gender perspectives should and can be incorporated by governments into their national policies and measures against climate change by carrying out systematic gender analysis, collecting and utilizing sex-disaggregated data, establishing gender-sensitive benchmarks and indicators, and developing practical tools to support increased attention to gender perspectives. Women, who are currently underrepresented in the decision-making process on environmental governance, should be equally represented in decision-making structures to allow them to contribute their unique and valuable perspectives and expertise. Successful climate action cannot occur in the absence of unified, informed strength, and such strength cannot occur in the absence of women.
Sources:
