Like what you've read?

On Line Opinion is the only Australian site where you get all sides of the story. We don't
charge, but we need your support. Here�s how you can help.

  • Advertise

    We have a monthly audience of 70,000 and advertising packages from $200 a month.

  • Volunteer

    We always need commissioning editors and sub-editors.

  • Contribute

    Got something to say? Submit an essay.


 The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
On Line Opinion logo ON LINE OPINION - Australia's e-journal of social and political debate

Subscribe!
Subscribe





On Line Opinion is a not-for-profit publication and relies on the generosity of its sponsors, editors and contributors. If you would like to help, contact us.
___________

Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Gender, climate change and natural disasters

By Kellie Tranter - posted Monday, 4 February 2008


Women plant, produce, procure and prepare most of the world’s food: women are responsible for about 75 per cent of household food production in Sub-Saharan Africa; 65 per cent in Asia; and 45 per cent in Latin America.

The time-consuming task of gathering and transporting water generally falls to women. As water becomes scarce, women’s workload increases dramatically. Girls’ school attendances, and eventually enrolments, drop as they trek longer distances to find water.

From the information I was able to access it seemed to me that the ways in which women are affected more than men is fairly consistently associated with their caregiving obligations or with cultural or religious mores.

Advertisement

So what if anything can we do about these appalling statistics?

There is probably no real scope for direct action because most of the foundational problems are entrenched cultural or religious mores that are not really susceptible to even local political intervention. Can aid agencies do what governments can’t? Perhaps it all comes down to educating women - giving them the benefit of the capacity for critical thought that comes with general education, and also educating women to look objectively at, and perhaps think differently about, their roles and behaviours and the consequences of these when under threat. That might at least bring them closer to a position of choice (PDF 912KB).

But each possible solution brings more problems and more questions. Where does the money come from? Should it come from developed nations considering that some of these disasters have been exacerbated or caused by their development? How should fair contributions be determined?

In September last year The Council of Women World Leaders (CWWL), the Women’s Environment and Development Organisation (WEDO) and the Heinrich Boll Foundation North America organised a roundtable called “How a Changing Climate Impacts Women”. The participants recognised that while there are no references to gender in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), statistics show that climate change is not gender neutral.

In December 2007 four global institutions - Women’s Environment and Development Organisation (WEDO), United Nations Development Program (UNDP), World Conservation Union (IUCN), and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) - met with Women environment ministers and leaders at the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali to ensure for the first time that “gender issues are prominent in climate policy and action”.

As a result of the meeting, the Network called upon the signatory countries and the Secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to:

Advertisement
  • recognise that women are powerful agents of change and that their full participation is critical in adaptation and mitigation climate policies and initiatives, and hence, guarantee that women and gender experts participate in all decisions related to climate change;
  • take action in order to ensure UNFCCC compliance with human rights frameworks, international and national commitments on gender equality and equity, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW);
  • develop a gender strategy, invest in gender-specific climate change research and establish a system for the use of gender-sensitive indicators and criteria for governments to use in national reporting to the UNFCCC Secretariat;
  • analyse and identify gender-specific impacts and protection measures related to floods, droughts, heatwaves, diseases, and other environmental changes and disasters; and
  • given that millions of poor women affected by climate change live and work outside the reach of formal markets, design and implement funding mechanisms accessible to them to reduce their particular vulnerabilities. In addition, increase equitable access by poor women and men to climate change market-based approaches such as the Clean Development Mechanism.

The actions of these groups is a positive and essential step: unless the interaction between gender and climate change is placed and kept firmly on the agenda, any policies to slow and redress climate change and its consequences are unlikely to assist disadvantaged women. Their proposals also allow action to be put in train now, through established international organisations which have the capacity to allocate the necessary funding. And if we all encourage our governments to support their initiatives through the United Nations - to which all wealthier countries are financial contributors - then we are all making a contribution to the solution.

Addressing the issue of gender and climate change requires long-term objectives and long-term commitment from the international community. The women’s organisations who are currently involved simply can’t shoulder the financial burden, and nor should they. And with the frequency and severity of environmental disasters increasing it is also critical that the work of those organisations should not be hindered by the qualification “pending funding”.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. Page 2
  4. All


Discuss in our Forums

See what other readers are saying about this article!

Click here to read & post comments.

38 posts so far.

Share this:
reddit this reddit thisbookmark with del.icio.us Del.icio.usdigg thisseed newsvineSeed NewsvineStumbleUpon StumbleUponsubmit to propellerkwoff it

About the Author

Kellie Tranter is a lawyer and human rights activist. You can follow her on Twitter @KellieTranter

Other articles by this Author

All articles by Kellie Tranter

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Photo of Kellie Tranter
Article Tools
Comment 38 comments
Print Printable version
Subscribe Subscribe
Email Email a friend
Advertisement

About Us Search Discuss Feedback Legals Privacy