The COP29 climate summit going on in Baku has scheduled November 21 as ‘gender day’ to focus on women’s participation in global climate action. But are they adequately represented at the COP high table? Only eight of the 78 world leaders participating in COP29 are women; the 2023 COP summit featured 15 women among a total of 133.
This is not to say that women’s voices are not being heard. The UN claims that more than four-fifths of the parties at COP have looked closely at gender in their latest nationally determined contributions and adaptation plans. There is good reason for that. It has long been established that women—especially those in developing nations—bear the brunt of climate change more than men. Different reports, including quite a few from various UN offices, have highlighted this over the years.
As far back as 2009, a UN report noted, “Women are more vulnerable to the effects of climate change than men—primarily as they constitute the majority of the world’s poor and are more dependent for their livelihood on natural resources that are threatened by climate change.” It pointed out that women don’t have many of the freedoms they require to adapt to climate crises due to persistent social, economic and political setbacks.
Then, as recently as last year, a report by UN Women estimated climate change would plunge at least 158 million women and girls into poverty by 2050, which is 16 million more than men and boys. Displacement due to extreme weather events like ravaging floods, storms, heatwaves, cyclones and droughts adds to the challenge. Researchers say women and children are 14 times more likely to die due to climate-change-induced disasters than men. For instance, 70 percent of the 230,000 people killed in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami were women.
The social turmoil that follows such events tends to push up violence on women too. The Sixth assessment report of UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change also established the link between the climate crisis and gender vulnerabilities. For instance, forced marriages and human trafficking witnessed a rise in Bangladesh during and after Cyclone Roanu and other storms.
Lancet Planetary Health, in a 2022 report titled ‘Extreme events and gender-based violence: a mixed-methods systematic review’, also revealed links between extreme weather and climate disasters with an increase in gender-based violence against women across the world. The study underlined the causes—“economic instability, food insecurity, mental stress, disrupted infrastructure, increased exposure to men, tradition, and exacerbated gender inequality”.
But even as women and girls are hit hard by climate emergencies, less than a third of the countries have some sort of national climate action plan that includes a commitment to upholding sexual and reproductive health, the UN Population Fund reported in 2023.
The suffering can get compounded by pollution, another emergency aggravated across Indian cities by the changing climate. A 2021 Lancet report analysed data from over 34,000 mothers who had had at least one pregnancy loss. The large number of miscarriages reported from India was found to be caused mostly due to exposure to bad ambient air, especially the fine particles present in it. It concluded, “Suboptimal air quality contributes to a considerable fraction of total pregnancy loss in South Asia.” The 2023 UN report corroborates it and adds it isn’t a worry only in India, “Climate change poses an existential threat to all of us, but pregnant women, babies, and children face some of the gravest consequences of all.”
Then there are the patriarchal norms and rights that come in the way. For instance, women constitute 50-80 percent of the world’s food production workforce; however, they own less than 10 percent of the land. Hence their decision-making powers including those to tackle climate’s vagaries are curbed.
Hence, it is crucial to increase all attempts aimed at involving women in climate action at global, national, local and hyper-local levels. The primary reason is that women are more vulnerable to climate disasters. Hence, the success of the global fight against them would depend on the participation of more women and their commitment to the net-zero targets.
But it’s also imperative to include more women in climate action because their intervention is often more effective. Women’s participation is seen to galvanise climate action. A 2005 research found that nations with higher proportions of women in parliament were more prone to ratify environmental treaties than other nations. Moreover, women are often the first responders to the climate change crisis at the community level.
Women-led action yields far better results in climate solutions. For instance, women are known to have increased agricultural yields by 20-30 percent when given the same access to resources as men. Women are known to have produced even better results when given proper training, resources and technology to engage in sustainable farming. This would reduce the climate-induced production troubles and the resultant food insecurity that worries almost every major agricultural producer now.
The conclusion is clear: empowering women to mitigate and adapt to the climate change crisis means stronger and more climate-resilient action.
Shubham Thakur
Climate policy and sustainability analyst
(Views are personal)
