Gender equality and climate change are closely interconnected in many respects. 

 

• Differentiated impacts: Women and men are impacted differently by climate change, as a result of different roles performed in society due to social norms and cultural beliefs. Girls and women are usually responsible for caring for children, the elderly and ill family members. They are tasked with procuring resources such as firewood and water, and processing, preparing and conserving food. 
   

• Livelihoods: Climate change is directly connected to key livelihoods on which women depend, starting from agriculture and natural resource management. Most of the agricultural workforce is composed of women, who are most often informal workers. As a result, they cannot count on safety nets and they are left most vulnerable to economic and environmental shocks, including those caused or aggravated by climate change. Climate change impacts agriculture and natural resources in many and substantial ways, such as increased droughts, irregular rainfall patterns and higher temperatures. Consequences such as a decrease in water availability, reduced land and crops productivity directly threaten those livelihoods that are based on agriculture and natural resources. They thus pose a direct threat to women in particular, both because many women are informally occupied in the agricultural sector and directly dependant on natural resources for their traditional roles in the household but also because women’s workload increases as they need to walk longer distances to find and fetch resources. And the more time girls and women have to spend to procure resources, the less time they have available to invest in training or income-generating opportunities, or leisure.
   

• Safety: When women are collecting firewood and water, they are often exposed to the risks of rape and harassment. The more time they have to spend procuring resources, the higher their exposure to safety risks. Climate change also aggravates extreme weather events and to cause natural disasters. These tend to generate an increase in gender-based and sexual harassment. 
   

• Food availability and nutrition: Decreasing food production because of climate change reduces food intake and nutrition as whole. And if women are typically the ones preparing food, they are often the last to eat and are usually the ones who give up meals for the sake of children and the rest of the family. 
   

• Indirect negative impacts: The school enrolment of girls tends to decrease as the environment becomes more and more fragile, since families can no longer afford to send all their children to school. Equally, climate change induced poverty leads to an increase in child marriages.
   

More Than Climate Victims

 

Not only are women and men impacted differently by climate change. Women and girls bear the biggest brunt of the impact of climate change. And in the absence of prompt, gender-transformative adaptation and mitigation measures and with the underrepresentation of women in policy-making fora, the risk is that climate change will not only perpetuate but also further aggravate gender inequality. 

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​​But while girls and women bear the biggest brunt of the impact of climate change, they are more than just climate victims. 
Because of the roles they play in the household, in communities and in the economy, women are uniquely positioned to also be powerful change agents. They tend to be more sensitive to environmental considerations, and are strong and powerful advocates of environmental protection and mitigation and adaptation. 
For their direct engagement and expertise in sectors such as natural resource management and in the agriculture, women also possess specific expertise on how to best preserve and manage natural resources, also and particularly in a scenario where climate change directly threatens the environment. Additionally, women have different coping mechanisms than men.
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Therefore, if girls and women are given the space to share their voice, talents, views and needs, including and especially in climate-related policy-making processes, they can to contribute to shape and drive the climate and sustainability agendas as powerful drivers of strategies. 
It is not only about social justice – it is about societal resilience and collective well-being.

 

Author: Silvia Sartori