Climate change: a gender issue?
Posted on 02. Oct, 2009 by Cara Bevington in Australia
It’s the rainy season right now in Thailand, each afternoon the streets of Bangkok swell with puddles as the rains rolls in.
This morning, hundreds of women from around South-East Asia, the Pacific, indeed the world, took to the streets of Bangkok with bright pink umbrellas, posters, signs and drums with the cry: “There’s no climate justice without gender justice.”
As we splashed and danced through the streets of Bangkok with our umbrellas, fisher-folk from around Asia sailed down the main river through Bangkok calling for their livelihoods and rivers to be protected.
The noise, colour and movement was invigorating and inspiring. We stopped traffic, spoke with curious Thai’s and tourists, and most importantly spent at least 60minutes making lots of noise right outside of the UN building where the climate negotiations are currently happening.
Working on the Adopt-A-Negotiator project, and having the chance to work with women from the Global Gender Climate Alliance during the last UN climate talks I attended in June, I felt pretty confident in my knowledge of the gendered dimension of climate change, but my eyes were only opened even further as I spent the 90 minute march chatting with women from all over Asia.
I met a woman the same age as me from the Philippines who had spent the past 4 days working in a call centre receiving emergency calls. She told me of speaking to a mother with a one month old baby who was trapped on the roof of her house because the water levels were so high.
I spoke with a mother from Nepal working on a climate awareness raising project with her community. She was coordinating a project to build people’s understanding and ability of how to best adapt to the impacts of climate change her village is already facing.
As we marched I thought about some conversations I’d had with some friends back in Australia after we had seen Oxfam’s ‘Sisters on the Planet’ films. One felt that a focus on gender and climate change was unimportant compared to the environmental challenge of protecting our physical environment, and another thought that a focus on women was unfair as surely men were affected by climate change too. To some extent I can see the points that they are making, but to me, the evidence is clear.
I would like to share with you an article by Tasneem Essop who works for WWF international (and, has been featured on this site). She writes:
“We cannot consider climate change as a purely environmental issue. The reality is that it will forever change the socio-economic landscape of our world, the continent and our country if we do not act now. Those with the least options have the least ability to adapt to climate change. Gender-based roles and responsibilities often result in limited options for women because women, as primary caregivers still have a reduced ability to earn a living, have less access to land and natural resources and have less of a voice in decision making.
Currently up to two billion people live in extreme poverty worldwide (which means they live on less that $2 a day). Two thirds of these are women. The reality is that climate change will worsen existing poverty, particularly in developing nations that are heavily dependent on natural resources.”
Obviously, women are not just victims of climate change. But are also powerful agents of change in their roles as consumers and citizens. Twirling umbrellas through the streets of Bangkok with women and men from all over the world bought this home to me today.
It can be hard to stomach or even fully comprehend how vast the problems of climate change can be, especially since terms like ‘sustainable energy’ and ‘clean environment’ can feel like such intangible concepts. Maybe a lesson for us all is to consider the personal impact of climate change on real people.
Within the negotiations, country delegates from Africa, small island nations, South American nations amongst others have all made passionate pleas for countries to act in the interest of their survival. To act to protect their people, their cultures, their homes. What will it take for these stories to not only be listened to, but heard?