Women and the climate change

Recently, more than 115 world leaders gathered at the largest and most important United Nations meeting ever on fighting against global warming.

In fact, the United Nations Climate Change Conference through its Copenhagen Accord has failed to reach a deal on industrialized and emerging nations reducing their greenhouse gas emissions, although it has successfully set a goal of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius over the coming years, and developed nations made a financial commitment to help poor nations cope with the effects of climate change.

After all this time, most of the debate about climate change has revolved around countries’ relative responsibility for limiting the growth of greenhouse gas emissions and funding efforts to shift to low-carbon energy and other green technologies. Climate change is more than just an issue of energy efficiency or industrial carbon emissions; it is also about people, where and how they live, what they consume, and the rights and opportunities available to them.

It is therefore fundamental to reflect on how climate change will affect women, men, boys and girls differently around the world, within nations, and how individual behavior can undermine or contribute to the global effort to cool our warming world. Climate change will not only endanger lives and undermine livelihoods, it will also exacerbate the gap between rich and poor and amplify the inequities between women and men.

Prior to the United Nations Climate Change Conference, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) published a book about the state of the world’s population in 2009 entitled, Facing a Changing World: Women, Population and Climate. This publication explores the critical connections among population dynamics, reproductive health, women’s lives and climate change as they relate to greenhouse gas emissions and societies’ resilience against the impacts of climate change.

According to the report, international climate change agreements and national policies are more likely to succeed in the long run if they take into account population dynamics, family planning, gender relations, reproductive health care, women’s well-being and access to services and opportunities as these elements could influence the future course of climate change and affect how humanity adapts to rising seas, worsening storms and severe droughts.

The report shows that women have the power to mobilize against climate change, but this potential can only be realized through policies empowering women. It also shows the required support that would allow women to fully contribute to the adaptation and mitigation as well as build resilience to climate change.

Women are indeed among the most vulnerable to climate change, partly because in many countries they make up a larger share of the agricultural workforce and partly because they tend to have less access to income-earning opportunities than men. Women manage households and care for family members, which often limits their mobility and increases their vulnerability to sudden weather-related natural disasters.

Drought and erratic rainfall force women to work harder to secure food, water and energy for their homes. Girls drop out of school to help their mothers with these tasks. Such a cycle of deprivation, poverty and inequality undermines the social capital needed to deal effectively with climate change.

Women are currently suffering disproportionately as a consequence of climate change.

Environmentalists estimate that 70 percent of the poor, who are more vulnerable to environmental damage, are women. Women die in greater numbers in disasters than men, and they tend to die at younger ages, but there are few reliable studies to document this phenomena, largely because there has so far been little focus by the international community on the gender impact of natural disasters.

Localized case studies associated with a devastating 1991 cyclone in Bangladesh, the 2003 European heat wave, and the 2004 Asian tsunami nonetheless affirm the greater vulnerability of women.

Through sampling data from natural disasters in 141 countries between 1981 and 2002, economists Eric Neumayer and Thomas Plümper confirmed that natural disasters and their subsequent impact on average kill more women than men.

Furthermore, the condition of women surviving from disaster could be no better as they still have to stay at shelters with more problems such as sexual harassment, discrimination, violence and they have limited access related to their reproductive health rights.

In Lamreh shelter in Aceh for example, in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami, hygiene kits for women were provided in a very limited number. Due to an emergency, a woman gave birth in an unsafe and unhygienic way; girls and women were raped, trafficking and discriminated against. With the 2006 Lapindo Mud case in East Java, women were left with tremendous problems as their specific needs were not prioritized and they were vulnerable to trafficking.

Nowadays, women in poor and wealthy countries alike are increasingly working either directly on climate change, on the global stage or in their communities, or they are struggling and strategizing to prevail amid deteriorating environmental conditions. Since women are usually responsible for household work, women in affluent countries have substantial power to reduce their families’ carbon footprint and environmental impact.

At the same time, women in developing countries have the power to reject the consumption pattern modeled on more affluent countries and to craft their own alternatives. And women everywhere have the power to teach the next generation about the importance of sustainability. In addressing the issue of climate change, the Indonesian government for example has been conducting gender mainstreaming strategies in relation to the environment, disaster relief and social conflict supported by running gender-responsive programs. Women’s and environmental NGOs in Indonesia have also been working together in facilitating women to manage local resources in their regions by providing technical assistance.

The mandates of governments and other institutions to consider women’s circumstances and gender relations have been established in declarations of rights and other agreements predating the world’s current focus on climate change. The 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women commits ratifying nations to conform their legislation and legal system to gender equality and to eliminate all distinctions, exclusions or restrictions made on the basis of sex.

The 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) Program of Action placed sexual and reproductive health at the center of women’s equality with men and their dignity and capacities as human beings. The 1995 Beijing Platform for Action called for gender mainstreaming in development and human affairs generally, meaning a fundamental consideration of differential impacts of policies and programs for women and men as the rule rather than the exception.

The secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has made an important step forward by putting women as important actors in ensuring their communities’ ability to cope with and adapt to climate change. The UNFCCC Secretariat is newly committed to taking gender into consideration in its deliberations, and the Global Environment Facility is now committed to assessing the impacts of its investments on women. The percentage of women at the negotiating tables of the Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC appears to be improving slightly, it varied from 15 percent to 23 percent in the 1990s and in recent years has been around 28 percent.

It is thus timely the climate debate should continuously take into account the human and gender dimensions of every aspect of the problem. Women must be involved not only in negotiations and planning, but also in implementation involving a vast array of institutions. Women’s voices will need to be forceful and heard, from tribal councils to national energy ministries to the halls of the United Nations. As stated by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai of Kenya, there is unlikely to be climate equity without gender equity.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/01/05/women-and-climate-change.html

Women suffer more than men during disasters, forum speakers report

Women are more likely to die in natural or man-made disasters than men. If women do survive, they suffer humiliation and harassment in evacuation camps due to their gender. In her home country of Bangladesh, many women died during a flood in 2001 because their traditional long dress and burka hindered their movements and prevented them from escaping the rising waters, according to Jean D’ Cunha, regional program director of the United Nations Fund for Women based in Thailand.

Bangladeshi women also find it hard to climb walls, trees, and roofs because they are culturally forbidden to do these “manly” activities in their daily lives, D’ Cunha said. Survivors who are sent to evacuation camps are sexually harassed due to lack of privacy and separate toilets for women, she added. D’Cunha and other resource persons reported these cases in separate sessions about gender, climate change, and disaster issues during the three-day Asia-Pacific NGO Forum on Beijing +15 at Miriam College in Quezon City that ended last Saturday. Humaira Mumtaz Shaikh of the non-government organization Hum Pakistani reported about the displacement created by Taliban atrocities in Pakistan, saying gender-specific needs of women are overlooked by people who manage the camps. One oversight she mentioned was that “no one thought of sanitary napkins in the relief efforts in the camps.” Regina Yuching Lin of the Garden of Hope Foundation in Taiwan, a country that experiences more than 100 earthquakes and 10 typhoons every year, said there is a need to “smash the myth” that women are not particularly vulnerable than other groups during disasters. She also said it is not true that gender does not matter during disaster relief delivery and the rebuilding process, and that unlike ethnicity or local politics, gender does not have to be taken into account during the decision-making process. Some 1,000 women leaders from Asia and the Pacific attended the forum, which looks back on the landmark Beijing Conference in 1995 that paved the way for global action on women’s concerns. The forum was organized by Southeast Asia Women’s Watch in preparation for the global NGO Forum in February next year in New York, prior to the 54th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women. Gender data needed According to Country Director Lilian Mercado of the aid group Oxfam-Philippines, six out of the 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have counted almost 350,000 fatalities and missing persons from disasters over the last five years. “How many of the affected are women?” she asked. “No one is asking about the situation of women.” Mercado said women survivors of disasters have expressed concern about child safety, distribution practices that could ‘exclude’ or add burdens on them, lack of efforts to address the specific needs of pregnant and lactating mothers, threat of forced relocation, and the breakdown of community protection mechanisms such as the village council for the protection of children in certain areas. She said some strategies that can be used to resolve the problems of women in disaster situations include the collection of gender-disaggregated data, using gender analysis in designing relief efforts, and protecting beneficiaries from sexual exploitation. Mercado urged policy makers to consider gender issues in risk reduction studies, promote the rights of women against coercion and deprivation, and create linkages between humanitarian agencies and women’s groups so they can function more effectively at the local and international levels. – GMANews.TV

Women’s role in adapting to climate change and variability

  Given that women are engaged in more climate-related change activities than what is recognized and valued in the community, this article highlights their important role in the adaptation and search for safer communities, which leads them to understand better the causes and consequences of changes in climatic conditions.

It is concluded that women have important knowledge and skills for orienting the adaptation processes, a product of their roles in society (productive, reproductive and community); and the importance of gender equity in these processes is recognized. The relationship among climate change variability and the accomplishment of the Millennium Development Goals is considered.

To read the document, please click here.

Women Farmers Ready to Beat Climate Change

A collective of 5,000 women spread across 75 villages in this arid, interior part of southern India is now offering a chemical-free, non-irrigated, organic agriculture as one method of combating global warming.

Agriculture accounts for 28 percent of Indian greenhouse gas emissions, mainly methane emission from paddy fields and cattle and nitrous oxides from fertilisers. The 2007 report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says India’s rainfall pattern will be changing disproportionately, with intense rain occurring over fewer days, leading directly to confusion in the agricultural scenario.

Decreased rain in December, January and February implies lesser storage and greater water stress, says the report, while more frequent and prolonged droughts are predicted.

The report cites, as example of impacts, that a 0.5 degrees Celsius rise in temperature will reduce wheat production in India by 0.45 tonnes per hectare.

Research at the School of Environmental Sciences in New Delhi projects crop losses of 10-40 percent by 2100 despite the beneficial effects of higher carbon dioxide on growth, with the dynamics of pests and diseases significantly altered.

Adaptation is both necessary and unavoidable, says the IPCC.

In Zaheerabad, dalit (the broken) women forming the lowest rung of India’s stratified society, now demonstrate adaptatation to climate change by following a system of interspersing crops that do not need extra water, chemical inputs or pesticides for production.

The women grow as many as 19 types of indigenous crops to an acre, on arid, degraded lands that they have been regenerated with help from an organisation called the Deccan Development Society (DDS).

DDS, working in this area of India for the last 25 years, has helped these women acquire land through government schemes for ‘dalits’, and form ‘sanghas’ or local self-help groups that convene regularly and decide their own courses.

The women plant mostly in October-November, calling up the family’s help for 7 days for weeding and 15-20 days for harvesting. Farmyard manure is applied once in two or three years depending on soil conditions.

In Bidakanne village, 50 year-old Samamma, standing in her field, points out the various crops, all without water and chemical inputs, growing in between the rows of sunflowers: linseed, green pea, chick pea, various types of millets, wheat, safflower and legumes.

The sunflower leaves attract pests and its soil depletion is compensated by the legumes which are nitrogen-fixing.

“In my type of cropping, one absorbs and one gives to the soil, while I get all my food requirements of oils, cereals and vegetable greens,’’ says Samamma.

Samamma’s under-one-acre plot produces, amongst other crops, 150 kg of red ‘horsegram’, 200 kg of millets and 50 kilos of linseed. She keeps 50 kg of grains and 30 kg of gram and sells the rest in the open market.

The 5,000 women in 75 villages are now in various stages of adopting this method of agriculture.

“In the climate change framework, this system of dryland agriculture has the resilience to withstand all the fallouts of elevated temperatures”, says P.V. Satheesh, the director of DDS.

Multiple stresses from global warming in India and the Asian continent are foreseen in water scarcity, groundwater salinity, food insecurity and hunger, loss of livelihoods and problems in downstream agriculture that depend on glacial melts.

The women now run a uniquely evolved system of ‘crop financing’ and food-distribution that they have mapped out themselves.

Subscription to the Sangha is by a fistful of grain. Those borrowing grains from this community grain bank then pay back five times the borrowed amount in grain.

The collected grains are then sifted for good seed and the rest is either sold in the open market, sold to members in crisis at low rates, or distributed to poor families in the village.

“I check the earheads of grain for good seed”, says 55 year old Akkama, seed bank manager in Hulugera village. “It’s a system handed down to me from my ancestors.” The women have stored over 50 different varieties of seeds from local cereals such as millets, wheat, red gram, linseed and sorghum.

The money collected from open market sales every year is deposited in regular banks and the interest earned from them is used to finance loans for members who again complete the cycle by paying back their loan in grain over five years.

DDS has now involved the women in a monitored system of organic produce that is certified by the global Participatory Guarantee Scheme (PGS)’s Organic India Council.

The method is a system of third party certification by organic growers themselves, initiated in India in 2006 by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the Indian ministry of agriculture in consultation with farmers and NGOs.

PGS groups are a worldwide phenomenon, operating in countries like the United States, New Zealand, Brazil and France. New initiatives are coming up in Vietnam and South and East Africa.

In Zaheerabad, the organically certified staples and grains are packed and labeled with the PGS certification, taken by a mobile van to be sold in retail to consumers in Hyderabad city 150 kms. Satheesh says the women are swamped with orders.

And yet, these women have come from the poorest rungs of society. Narsamma, 55, says she worked as a labourer 25 years ago, earning a pittance.

She heard about DDS’s self-help group in a neighbouring village and approached the organisation for help.

She has now provided education for five children, two of whom work in NGOs, built a new house and bought cattle and land with DDS and government-support.

” Now, when landlords come to me for borrowing seed, now I can laugh,’’ says the feisty woman who has traveled to London, Peru, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, talking to local farmers about the ecologically sound agriculture practiced by the women of Zaheerabad.

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46131

Indigenous women: most vulnerable to climate change but key agents of change

One of the key issues raised at the United Nations Forum on Indigenous Peoples (UNPFII), 18-29 May 2009, New York City, concerns the neglected role of indigenous women in climate change negotiations. The two week session brought together almost 2000 representatives of indigenous groups, UN agencies, governments and other experts.

Water, food and health

“Indigenous women are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, including food security”, said Gonzalo Oviedo, IUCN Senior Social Policy Advisor. Indigenous women are most often subsistence producers and heavily reliant on the quality and quantity of natural resources. Drawing on results from many local studies, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, Chairperson of the UNPFII, pointed out: “The burden on indigenous women has increased tremendously because of climate change. The burden on indigenous women and children is much heavier because of the need to seek water sources far away from their homes and provide support and health care to the increasing numbers of sick family members”.

Due to climate change, there is a great rise in vector and waterborne diseases such as malaria and dengue, even on high mountains where it has never appeared before. Increased temperatures also lead to heat strokes and decrease the abilities of fisher folks to stay long out on the water. A case study from Coron Island, Philippines, showed that the rise in sea temperature together with pollution and destruction of coral reefs has lowered daily fish catch from 30 kilograms a few years back to 5 kg today. Many forest peoples also report that they are affected by the decline of non timber forest products such as wild food crops, nuts, and products from honey bees.

Unprecedented floods along coastal areas affect the soil fertility as they make the soils salty and sandy and in some cases even drown lifestock, destroy infrastructure and disturb socio-cultural activities.

Social fabric

Phrang Roy, raised in a hill tribe of north India and expert of the Christensen Fund, an IUCN member, pointed out how climate change also affects their social life and traditional knowledge: “As the women need to walk much longer distances to get water, they have less time than before to sit down, relax, and transmit their traditional knowledge to younger generations. Not just planting seasons but also periods for cultural ceremonies and traditions are profoundly disturbed by climate change. The increased time for household chores furthermore often keeps girls away from school.

Toxins

Among the many impact on indigenous peoples in the Arctic, Patricia Cochran, Chair, Inuit Circumpolar Council mentioned that chemical pollutants such as DDT and toxaphene from activities elsewhere are found in specifically high concentration in the air, water and food chain in the Arctic. “Concentration of such chemicals is for example eight times higher in indigenous women’s breast milk in the Arctic compared to the women in New York City. And the inuit suffer from the highest lung cancer rates in the world.”

Drought

Results from the African region also showed that women are particularly affected. ”Drought and conflicts are closely related and make women have to run away”, stated an African participant. They then have to leave their traditional livelihood systems, often lose their identities, and become victims of violation. There are  reports that pastoralist girls were already traded at an age of as young as 8 in order to replace lifestock loss from drought.

Indigenous women leading in adaptation strategies

However, most of the indigenous peoples have been creative and developed sophisticated strategies to adapt. Indigenous women are crucial biodiversity managers, traditional custodians of seeds and experiment with a diversity of seeds, keep sophisticated water management systems and agricultural technology in order to adapt to the changing conditions. “Many of their systems remain unnoticed, unseen, unreported”, says Phrang Roy.

Multiple discrimination

Though indigenous women are main caregivers, water and food providers, they have as yet the least access to land, education, health facilities, disaster relief services, infrastructure development and credit assistance. Many of them suffer from multiple discrimination. Govind Kelkar from UNIFEM says: “Most indigenous women are excluded on three levels: as indigenous peoples, as women within indigenous peoples, and as women”. This is felt in their role in the indigenous society, in the subjugation of indigenous peoples, and in the labour market. Climate change adds to their already disadvantaged and marginalized situation and is in many cases the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Addressing the need

The issues of traditional livelihoods, indigenous peoples and especially indigenous women have been neglected in the entire climate change debate. Annelie Fincke from the IUCN Social Policy Unit points out: “Their perspectives and rights must be included in issues like access to land, natural resources, conflict resolution, food security, etc. in order to help reduce their vulnerability to climate change.” The need is especially urgent to strengthen indigenous women and to improve their consideration, participation and voice from project level to international climate change negotiations.

Lorena Aguilar, Senior Gender Advisor of IUCN emphasises “The capacity of women, particularly of indigenous women, to participate in biodiversity and climate change decision-making must be increased as well as valued”.

IUCN responding to challenge

IUCN has several initiatives paying special attention to indigenous women. Specific capacity building workshops and advocacy within the negotiations of the Convention on Biological Diversity resulted in an official gender action plan with indigenous women being key actors. A series of national workshops throughout the Central American region allowed participants to identify women’s needs. In June 2009, a specific workshop on indigenous women and climate change will be held in Honduras

In the climate change negotiations before the upcoming Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in December 2009 in Copenhagen, IUCN aims to include gender considerations related to climate change and support for gender equality within the UNFCCC, including an ecosystem-based adaptation approach which supports indigenous peoples. This also aims at strengthening their rights, specifically with regard to proposed mechanisms for Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD).

For more information, please contact:

Annelie Fincke, IUCN Social Policy, email annelie.fincke@iucn.org
Gonzalo Oviedo, IUCN Senior Social Policy Advisor, email gto@iucn.org

Men, Women and the Environment: Gender Issues in Climate Change

   Gender relations are the socially determined relations that differentiate male and female situations. People are born biologically male and female but have to acquire a gender identity. Gender relations refer to the gender dimension of the social relations structuring the lives of individual men and women, such as the gender division of labor and the gender division of access to and control over resources.

It is critical to understand the gender dimension in the development-disaster process in order to address root causes. Gender patterns, thus, shape development patterns and social vulnerability to natural disasters, and are influenced in turn by both.

To read more, please click here.  

Gender Equality and Climate Change

Why consider how climate change will affect men and women differently? Understanding how the different social expectations, roles, status, and economic power of men and women affect, and are affected differently by, climate change will improve actions taken to reduce vulnerability and combat climate change in the developing world.

Food security

Climate change is predicted to reduce crop yields and food production in some regions, particularly the tropics. Women are responsible for 70–80 percent of household food production in sub-Saharan Africa, 65 percent in Asia, and 45 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean. They achieve this despite unequal access to land, information, and inputs such as improved seeds and fertilizer. Traditional food sources may become more unpredictable and scarce as the climate changes. Women’s specific knowledge of maintaining biodiversity, through the conservation and domestication of wild edible plant seeds and food crop breeding, is key to adapting to climate change more effectively.

Water and other resource shortages

Climate change may exacerbate existing shortages of water. Women, largely responsible for water collection in their communities, are more sensitive to the changes in seasons and climatic conditions that affect water quantity and accessibility that make its collection even more time-consuming.

Health

Climate change may affect human health in a variety of ways, including:

• increased spread of vector- and water-borne diseases;
• reduced drinking water availability;
• food insecurity due to reduced agricultural production in some regions; and
• increased cases of heat stress and respiratory illness.

As primary caregivers in many families, women may see their responsibilities increase as family members suffer increased illness. Further, in the developing world, women often have less access to medical care than men.

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Gender in Climate Change Adaptation

Why do we need to address gender issues in climate
change adaptation?

BECAUSE CC ADAPTATION IS NOT GENDER-NEUTRAL
•Women often suffer most from CC impacts: poorer, more vulnerable, less access to resources and services, victims of gendered division of labour, less liberty of migration, low visibility and decision-making power less, face violence in face of disaster/conflicts, inadequate attention for women’s reproductive and sexual health.

• In order for adaptation strategies to be effective and sustainable, we need women to participate.

• Women’s priorities and strategies integrated in CC adaptation results in
more sustainability and fairness.

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Climate Change and Gender

Climate change is a very serious threat to sustainable development and will endanger the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals. Combating climate change is directly linked with poverty eradication. Therefore, it is very important that we reach a comprehensive new agreement on climate change by the end of 2009.

Influencing climate change will require full commitment and action by both women and men. The most important measures to mitigate climate change will involve increasing the use of renewable energy, reforestation, and halting the rate of deforestation.

Adapting to climate change will affect agriculture, food security and water management in rural areas. Regenerative ecological agriculture can also provide a good mitigation tool. In developing countries, women are  traditionally responsible for performing these functions; in Africa it is estimated that 80 per cent of food production is managed by women.

Why is the contribution of women so important?

An analysis by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change indicates that
the worst impacts of climate change will be on the poorest regions and the
poorest people, who have the fewest resources for meeting the changes brought by increasing droughts, floods or storms. As many as 70 per cent of these poor people are women.

This means that poor women will have to struggle with the impacts of climate change. However, these women can also be powerful agents of change. Empowerment of women in planning and decision-making as well as in implementing measures to mitigate climate change will make our common efforts more effective, especially at the local level.

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Is There A Connection Between Gender and Climate Change?

Lorena Aguilar, Senior Gender Advisor of IUCN, tells us the answer.