We’ve all heard about Climate Change and its ongoing effects all around the world. Climate Change is increasingly being recognized as a global crisis. It has caused crisis in different areas of life, but have we ever wondered what relation does Climate Change have with Gender? The responses to climate change has mostly been focused more on the economic and scientific solutions, however human and gender dimensions has still been overlooked even though it plays a significant role in understanding and mitigating climate change.
Climate change, to put it simply, is the term used to describe the increasingly unpredictable weather, rising sea levels, and extreme events that may be linked to human activities and greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change is frequently perceived as a scientific and technological issue, but it also has significant social, economic, and political ramifications for gender equality and social justice.
Extreme occurrences like floods, heat waves, and natural disasters are becoming more frequent as a result of the acceleration of climate change. Due to this, those in the global south who have made the least contributions to the issue suffer the most in terms of their livelihood. Even among men and women, they do not experience climate change equally. Due to cultural norms and economic restrictions, women are still not allowed to work in paid jobs in many developing nations. As a result, their primary source of income is subsistence agriculture or collecting water.
Since women perform the majority of the household's unpaid activities due to economic restrictions and gender inequity, the effects of climate change have a direct impact on their life It increases their already added household responsibilities such as walking further for increasing scarce of food and water, taking care of family members due to health problems linked to climate change and so on. With added responsibilities women and girls have little time for their own development such as education, income generating activities, participation in community decision making processes which further increases unequal gender relations.
However, having said that, men also experience negative impacts of climate change, especially when they belong to economically poor backgrounds. When men are considered as the breadwinners in a society, when their rural livelihoods are undermined by the impacts of climate change, it can cause stress to them as they cannot fulfill the societal expectations as “providers”. Therefore, adding gender dimensions to policies are extremely important. Many climate change policies are still largely gender blind, overlooking the gender dimensions of climate change. Even where gender issues are considered, they are seen as an “add-on” to existing policies. Climate change policies and processes will be neither effective nor fair unless they become more gender aware. Therefore, it is important for climate-adaptation policies to not only treat women as vulnerable beneficiaries but also as rights-holding citizens who need to be recognized for the agency, skills and experience they can contribute.
