Intersections: Climate Change and Women

Risks are not borne equally. Coping with drought in the Sahel looks much different than coping with drought in California. A person living in an under-resourced and climate change-affected region will likely face more catastrophic consequences than a wealthier individual in a similar situation. In its destructive path, it is clear that drought, floods, storms, and myriad human-caused climate events hit the poor the hardest – physically, economically, and socially.

As Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon declared at the UN Climate Change Conference in Indonesia in 2007, “Climate change affects us all, but it does not affect us all equally.”[1]

But what does it mean to be a girl or a woman in an under-resourced region affected heavily by climate change? What is their risk profile in the context of climate change, and what does the global community’s inclusion of women (or lack thereof) spell out for the future of climate-change mitigation?

Bringing to Light Structural Inequalities

As Emmeline Skinner points out, climate change acts as a magnifying class that puts into focus and even exacerbates long-standing structural inequities. In addition to making-up a disproportionate share of poverty worldwide, women also face a slew of unique structural disadvantages in social and behavioral expectations, land ownership rights, and access to resources and services, which are hindrances in recovering from any type of disturbance. When these constraints come into play in the context of climate-change, girls and women, particularly in rural and developing areas of the world, are left at a stark disadvantage in being able to cope resiliently to changes in their natural and social environment.[2]

Chronic Climate Change

When climate change strains the environment, especially in rural communities, the security of girls and women fall immediately under threat. Women in rural regions of the world are particularly dependent on natural resources for their livelihoods.[3] They are often responsible for household work such as finding food, collecting water, and securing energy for cooking and heating.[4] Oftentimes, these same resources are used by girls and women for income-generating activities in social environments where other jobs in less climate-sensitive fields such as technology are not as readily available. When water, wood, and crops become scarce due to drought and other climate aberrations, food security comes under threat, income-generating resources are threatened, and the burden of work increases for female family members as they must work harder and go farther to find what they are expected to provide.

In a publication by PLAN International, girls in Ethiopia reported significantly increased time spent away from school during prolonged periods of drought in order to fetch water. Some of the young respondents reported spending up to 6 hours per day collecting water, when previously it had only taken 2.[5]

Climate Disasters

In the face of a future of increasingly extreme weather events, it is critical to review the unique risks that are currently being born by girls and women during climate disasters.[6]  Men and women experience disasters differently. Following the 1991 cyclone and floods in Bangladesh, the death rate was 71 per 1,000 in women aged 20 to 44, as compared to 15 per 1,000 for men.[7] Women were almost five times more likely to have perished in the disaster. As the World Bank notes, this vulnerability may have been due to several factors, including differences in socialization. Young girls may not have been encouraged to learn to swim or climb trees like young boys – skills which can mean the difference between life or death. It has been documented that some women did not evacuate their homes due to gendered cultural constraints, and that those who did were unable to swim in the floodwaters.[8]

This same gendered mortality imbalance was observed in the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, where a recorded 80% of lives lost were those of girls and women.  

Gendered risks are further exacerbated when climate refugees, who can arguably include those fleeing the Syrian crisis, find themselves in displaced person camps. Male-preference feeding customs in the face of limited food, inappropriately placed bathing facilities, and disrupted social networks add to the unique physical and social threats faced by girls and women when forces such as climate change transform their environment.   

Women as a Part of the Solution

What makes the intersection of climate change and gender so important as a point of focus is the fact that it is as much a weakness as it is an opportunity. Climate change and disasters, from droughts to changes in rainfall, constitute a relatively foreseeable series of events that will have its most detrimental impacts in developing countries. This presents an opportunity for all parties to actively bring women into the picture while working to transform the very social barriers that put them at increased risk.

As the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change points out, “[w]omen are disproportionately affected by climate change impacts, such as droughts, floods and other extreme weather events, but they also have a critical role in combating climate change.”[9]

Women have a unique and necessary role to play in the management, conservation, and use of natural resources. Their traditional responsibilities of growing food and collecting water and firewood has made them keenly attuned to the environment and the devastating impacts of deforestation, desertification and other forms of degradation.[10] Their insights are critical, and their mobilization is key. As a WEDO and UNFPA report explains, “[w]omen are sometimes seen only as victims of climate change and natural disasters, when in fact they are well positioned to be agents of change through mitigation, management and adaptive activities in their households, workplaces, communities and countries.”[11]

Failing to engage women in prevention and mitigation decisions will mean failing to comprehensively address climate change. The inclusion of women is essential for meaningful and effective solutions.  

[1] http://www.un.org/apps/news/infocus/sgspeeches/statments_full.asp?statID=161#.VhvN3unLTTE

[2] http://docs.bridge.ids.ac.uk/vfile/upload/4/document/1211/Gender_and_CC_for_web.pdf Page

[3] http://www.un.org/womenwatch/feature/climate_change/

[4] http://www.un.org/womenwatch/feature/climate_change/

[5] https://plan-international.org/weathering-storm

[6] http://www.sciencemag.org/content/309/5737/1036.full

[7] http://www.wedo.org/wp-content/uploads/bangladesh-case-study.pdf

[8] http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTSOCIALDEVELOPMENT/Resources/DFID_Gender_Climate_Change.pdf

[9] http://unfccc.int/gender_and_climate_change/items/7516.php

[10] UNFPA and WEDO Resource Kit on Gender, Population, and Climate Change,

[11] Climate Change Connections: Gender Population and Climate Change. United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO). 2009. Report.