BY MIKE TUA
WOMEN in particular are more vulnerable to climate change and evidently they are more prone to adverse impacts from climate change.
According to a draft paper “Mainstream Gender into Climate Change Policies” prepared by Dr. Jyoti Parikh, Director, Integrated Research and Action for Development (IRADe), commissioned by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), India, there is an increase social and economic inequalities and differences among women when it comes to building women capacity in their communities against the effects and impacts of climate change.
“Women adaptive capacities arise from prevailing social inequalities and ascribed social and economic roles that manifest itself in difference in property rights, access to information, lack of employment and in equal access to resources.
“Further climate changes usually impact sectors that are traditionally associated with women, such as paddy fields, cotton and tea plantations and fishing.
“This means increased hardship for women. For example, studies show that climate change has an adverse impact on fishing, as the sea level rises and saline water enters into fresh water systems, making fishing difficult.
“Further in extreme events more women deaths are observed for women’s inability to swim or run or lack of strength to withstand physically demanding situation such as storms, floods, typhoons etc.,” studies revealed.
Climate change is the changes in the earth’s climate, due to human activities – also known as anthropogenic climate change, or natural processes that are already occurring or predicted to occur.
These include increasing air and sea surface temperatures, changing rainfall patterns, sea level rise, ocean acidification, and changes in frequency and intensity of extreme events such as droughts, floods and tropical cyclones.
The study makes the consideration of the impact of climate change on gender most vital because from a long term perspective – this have a very serious implications for gender relations may end up spending more time on tasks that reinforce stereotypical gender roles.
Thus, women are faced by the situation where their ability to adapt is low (due to a number of pre-existing factors), but the share of adaptation burden falling disproportionately on them.
Women bear a disproportionate burden of Climate Change consequences, which include: decreased food security, impact of livelihoods, water resources – shortage and access and increased burden of care giving.
“With changes in climate, traditional food sources become more unpredictable and scarce.
This exposes women to loss of harvests, often their sole sources of food and income.
“Women are more dependent for their livelihood on natural resources that are threatened by climate change. For instance, climate change causes a rise in sea level, affecting the fishing community (both men and women) not only in terms of fish catch but also with regard to water scarcity, as seawater gets into fresh water.
“Besides, when the land is inundated, infrastructure (roads and houses) are damaged. Large scale migration from inundated areas is expected and much of the burden of migration falls on women.
“Climate change may exacerbate existing shortages of water. Women are largely responsible for water collection in their communities and are therefore are more affected when the quantity of water and/ or its accessibility changes.
“As primary caregivers, women may see their responsibilities increase as family members suffer increased illness due to exposure to vector borne diseases such as malaria, water borne diseases such as cholera and increase in heart stress mortality,” the study further revealed.
By implementing a constructive development strategy and mechanism is the only way forward to understand and address the impacts of climate change gender (both men and women).
The study clearly indicated that there are few possible ways to move forward, which means gender differences must be taken into account to understand the impact of climate change.
Gender differentiated strategies for responses and capacity – building are needed, due to differences in gender specific roles and responsibilities created by society. These findings should feed into the climate negotiations as well as national debates to enable decision-makers to have a better understanding of how different groups of people are affected and what kind of capacity and support is needed.
The following specific actions are more required: recognise that women are more vulnerable in climate change driven scenarios, understand and address gender-specific natural resource use pattern, identify women’s particular skills and capacities that lend themselves to mitigation and adaptation and increase women’s participation in decision-making at all levels in climate change mitigation and adaptation.
“Government should analyse and identify gender-specific impacts and protection measures related to floods, droughts, diseases, and other environmental changes and disasters. An inter-ministerial taskforce could be set up towards this end.
“Also government should develop strategies to enhance women’s access to and control over natural resources, to reduce poverty, protect environment resources, and ensure women and poor communities can better cope with climate change.
“As part of the strategy and capacity building, women’s participation in climate change related debates and planning must be enhanced by tools and procedures that expand their capacity and sensitize decision-makers to the advantages of equal participation.
“Given that woman’s knowledge and participation has been critical to the survival of entire communities in disaster situations, government should take cognizance of women’s specialized skills in different aspects of their livelihood and natural resource management strategies and utilize those that lend themselves to mitigation and adaptation,” the study revealed.
Adaptation is making changes to reduce the vulnerability of a community, society or system to negative effects of climate change. While in the context of climate change, mitigation is an effort to reduce the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, either by limiting the sources such as through switching to renewable energy such as solar or hydro power, or by enhancing the sinks such as planting more trees.
