Women and Climate Change: What’s the Connection?

Dr. Greta GaardAssociate Professor of English, UWRFPresentation for Dr. Hardtke’s “Women & Science” class, May 5, 2010

Climate impacts will affect the entire global environment…

• Sea levels could increase by 50cm

• Water availability could decline

• Seasonal rainfall patterns could be severely disrupted

• Frequency and intensity of extreme-weather events could increase –>• loss of life, injury, mass

population dislocations, and economic devastation of poor countries

• Human health could suffer from a combination of effects :• Heat stress, water shortages,

and malnutrition • Respiratory illnesses• Infectious diseases

…but climate change will affect the poorest people first and most

•Housing •Economics •Health •Communications•Aid •No relief

Produced by the wealthy……Suffered by the poor

As a global environmental challenge, created and driven by high-consumption lifestyles, climate change lies outside the sphere of influence of poor communities and poor countries.

Those with special burdens and/or vulnerabilities such as women, ethnic minorities, and people living with HIV/AIDS are feeling yet another pressure in global warming – one that is fundamentally unjust.

The Gender/Climate Change ConnectionsWomen are more severely

affected by climate change and natural disasters, due to

• social roles, • discrimination, and• poverty.

Women are underrepresented in decision-making about

• climate change, • greenhouse gas emissions,

and, most critically, • discussions and decisions

about adaptation and mitigation.

Women, climate change, & ecological disasters

• More work to fetch water, or to collect fuel and fodder

• Increased male-out migration

• More women left behind with additional agricultural and household duties

=> • Fewer resources to

cope with seasonal and episodic weather and natural disasters.

In developing countries, women living in poverty bear the burden of climate change consequences.

“Women’s Work” & Climate Change• Caregiving. Because women are

primary care-givers in times of disaster and environmental stress, the heavier burdens of caregiving tend to make them less mobile.

• Workloads. Climate Change is expected to magnify existing shortfalls in water resources and fuelwood.

– More time spent fetching water or wood will increase women’s workloads

– limiting their opportunities to branch out into other, non-traditional activities.

Women and children are 14 times more likely to die in ecological disasters than men. Why?

•2004 Tsunami in Aceh, Sumatra•In Aceh, more than 75% who died were women. •As so many mothers died-> infant mortality, early marriage of girls, neglect of girls' education, sexual assault, trafficking in women and prostitution.

•1991 cyclone and flood in Bangladesh, 90% of victims were women. Why?

• Warning information•Confinement •Not swimmers•Caregiving •Risk of sexual assaults

Gender, Economics, & Climate ChangeIn Europe, in both work and leisure,• women travel by car less frequently

and over shorter distances, • use smaller, energy-saving cars and• fly less frequently than men.

Women are under represented in high-income groups, and over represented as heads of low-income households.

Income levels play a role in CO2 emissions: the higher the income, the higher the emissions from larger houses with more electrical equipment, bigger cars and so on.

Women produce less greenhouse gas.

Industrial countries bear the main responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions.

United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (9/10/2008)

• Meat production accounts for nearly 1/5 of global greenhouse gas emissions—more than from all forms of transport.

• Ruminants, particularly cows, emit methane, which is 23 times more dangerous as a global warming agent than carbon dioxide.

• In Latin America, the FAO estimates 70% of former forest cover has been converted for grazing.

• Giving up that average 176 lbs. of meat a year is one of the greenest lifestyle changes you can make as an individual.

“Real men eat beef.”

Gender & Climate Change Solutions

Existing transport systems in the North have been defined by a focus on middle-aged working men, neglecting women’s higher dependency on public transport means, and their specific needs due to gender-related division of labor.

If these aspects would be fully taken into consideration, both more user-friendly and climate-friendly transport systems would be the possible.

Climate Change policy tends to be driven by a masculine view of the problem and its solutions.

Gender & Climate Change Mitigation

• Women perceive global warming as a more dangerous threat than men do and would do more to address it, given the tools.

• Women and men perceive the cause of climate change (including CO2 emissions) differently. • In Germany, more women than men rate climate change as

extremely or very dangerous. • Women also believe that each individual can contribute toward

protecting the climate through his/her individual actions. • Policy planning does not reflect in any way these perceptions.

• By excluding women, the world loses vital input and profound knowledge

Women’s EmpowermentLinked to Climate Change SolutionsIn November 2006, Kenya’s Greenbelt

Movement, founded by Wangari Maathai, signed an emissions reduction purchase agreement to reforest two mountain areas in Kenya.

• Women’s groups will plant thousands of trees, providing rural women with income and economic independence.

• The trees will capture 350,000 tons of carbon dioxide, restore soil lost to erosion, support regular rainfall essential to Kenya’s farmers.

Equal participation is a matter of justice.

• Women’s standpoint on climate change provides information that is lacking from current mitigation practices.

• Involving women in climate decision-making ensures not only justice, but the effectiveness of climate policies.

What can you do?

• Join Oxfam and WEDO - help women and their communities build up their resilience to climate change

• Join the Women Demand US Action on Climate Change campaign at WDACCUS@googlegroups.com

• Write your U.S. Congress Senators/Representatives• Write a letter to the editor of your local paper

• Reduce your own consumption of fossil fuels and your production of greenhouse gases through changes in transportation, energy use, diet, purchasing, waste

Resources• International Union for Conservation of Nature

http://www.iucn.org/ http://www.genderandenvironment.org/

• Oxfam• http://www.oxfamamerica.org/whatwedo/

campaigns/climate_change • http://www.oxfam.org.uk/resources/issues/

climatechange/introduction.html • Women’s Environment and Development Organization

http://www.wedo.org/ • United Nations

http://www.gencc.interconnection.org/ • Women for Climate Justice http://www.gendercc.net/