Women and Climate : intricacies

Hello,

Well, isn't it lovely to see you again!

This article will discuss the role of women vis-a-vis climate change.

To pick a famous quote, ‘…women issues are human rights issues…’ so then when climate change affects women, it becomes an issue about you and me, regardless of gender.

In other words, we are all involved.

So then dear person,

Have a seat.

Patricia Espinosa - Head of UNFCCC.
Image courtesy of  UNFCC.int

In leadership, there are women in positions of authority and influence includesthe immediate former head of the UNFCCC, Christiana Figueres and her successor Patricia Espinosa. There is also the heads of climate and environment ministries in various countries in the world, like Cathy McKenna in Canada, Hakima El Haite in Morocco and Judi Wakhungu in Kenya.

But on the ground, in terms of gender women tend to be the most affected by climate change because of several reasons:

a) They are tasked with bringing up families and are in the most contact with the environment     because they depend on it to earn a living. They are in charge of such activities as agriculture (farming), energy (collecting of wood or charcoal), water (fishing, sea weed farming,for use in various activities in the household.).

b) Though this is changing, most of our societies are patriarchal and thus men make decisions about almost everything even though the issues at hand will in one way or the other affect the woman.

c) Women in vulnerable or underprivileged communities rarely get the same quality of education a man will get. If compared, the boy child is most likely to be more exposed and better educated than his girl counterpart.

 d) Poor education means that fewer opportunities come the way of women and thus they don’t have the financial muscle to make their voices heard. You see, if one is poor, she is most likely to involve herself in finding money for daily upkeep, school fees et al rather than get involved in agitating for better environmental governance or climate change.

All this means that women are not as well represented in decision making organs and that neither their voice nor seat at the table commensurate to their role.

When it comes to it, there is a vicious cycle between poverty and the environment. Poverty leads to degradation of the environment which leads to more poverty. It is also true that the most vulnerable to such are those without any means to cushion themselves, especially those who depend directly on nature for a living, the poor.

In a previous post, I mentioned that 6 of the worst affected countries by climate change are in Africa.  Most of Africa is developing. Consequently, gender inequality still persists. That means women and the poor face the brunt of climate change.

So if their source of livelihood say like farming or fishing is negatively affected by erratic weather or unpredictable and extreme weather patterns like extended droughts or other effects of climate change such as warmer waters resulting in death of coral and fish, what happens? Their ability to feed themselves and their dependants or just to generally uplift themselves is adversely affected. That means that they’ll remain in the same or worse life conditions.

Climate change then worsens gender inequality.

Not all is negative however. Let’s get to the upshot.

Christiana Figueres  - image cortesy of goodplanet.org

There are women in various positions of influence when it comes to climate change. Let’s start with Christiana Figueres. She is the immediate former head of the UNFCCC. She came in after the acrimonious COP15 in Copenhagen. It was under her leadership that much was achieved including the technology mechanism and the most glittering achievement so far: the Paris Agreement 2015.

She is now the vice chair of the Global Covenant of Mayors for Energy and Climate.

Patricia Espinosa now heads the UNFCCC under whose auspices was signed the Paris Agreement 2015. As a body, the UNFCCC is responsible in an official capacity to oversee international climate change agreements and basically how the world progresses climate – wise. I might point out that Ms. Espinosa has experience in gender issues and climate change as well as human rights.

There are also several women mayors of major cities across the globe like Yokohama, Paris, Barcelona, Cape Town and  Durban who are responsible for initiating several initiatives to combat climate change an example being the ‘ban on diesel car by 2025’ initiative of which Paris led by Mayor Anne Hidalgo is a member.

The French under whose presidency the Paris Agreement 2015 was agreed to have also formidable women voices in climate change such as Segolene Royal, the minister of environment and Laurence Tubiana . Ms. Tubiana alongside Hakima El Haite was a climate champion tasked with getting widespread consensus ahead of last year’s COP22.  Before then she was France’s international climate ambassador ahead of COP21. She now heads the European Climate Foundation.

Speaking of Hakima El Haite, the minister delegate for environment in Morocco is a climate scientist who is passionate about sustainable development. She was very much involved in COP21 and COP 22 the latter which was hosted by Morocco.

Apart from diplomats, there are women scientists in the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change and elsewhere. The body is tasked with the scientific side of climate change from which all decisions made concerning the issue are based.

To mention a few;

 Anny Cazenave was a lead author in the 4^th and 5^th Assessment Reports covering the section about sea level rise.

Ko Barrett serves as the deputy director in climate program office in National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency and has also worked closely with the IPCC.

Pauline Dube is a professor of Environmental Science at the University of Botswana. She is also a lead author with the IPCC.

These women have plenty of experience in climate change issues.

Mary Robinson and Helen Clark, both leaders of government in their respective countries at some point, now serve in different capacities in international organizations and in one way or another are involved in climate change.

The cabinet secretary in charge of environment in Kenya, Ms. Judi Wakhungu is a trained geologist and heads a dynamic and fast growing ministry.

Under her serves the equally capable director of climate change and renewables, Dr. Pacifica Ochieng.

Both were instrumental in getting the Paris Agreement ratified in Kenya. They spearhead creation of awareness in Kenya and advise the government on issues pertaining to climate change.

 Filmmakers and activists such as Franny Armstrong have also worked to raise awareness of climate change issues and change the way we think about it.

There however needs to be a bigger number of women who can introduce climate change more powerfully into the public realm. People on the ground, boots on the ground, to harness the power of the people and cause a paradigm shift to a low carbon economy. Women are excellent at this.

Lastly I’d like to mention the 2004 Nobel Peace Laureate, the late Professor Wangari Maathai, the exceptional and acclaimed environmentalist. She dedicated her life to fighting for forests and the environment and also peace and human rights which are closely interlinked.  She founded the Greenbelt Movement and has served as a role model to many young women in the world, in Africa and in her native Kenya, this our beloved Kenya, in particular.

She will forever be celebrated and her values espoused by many of us young environmental scientists.

May her soul rest in peace.

However, there remains to be a major disconnect between the relatively small number of women in power and the  millions of women in the world who are directly affected by climate change.

How are we bridging the gap? There is need for more advocacy, skill sharing, creation of awareness and empowerment of women. Bodies such as the UN Women are doing their bit but there is a need for more and stronger grassroot organizations to help women both mitigate and adapt to climate change.

Other organizations such as the Women Environment and Development Organization and Women’s Climate Collaborative are also making significant steps in leveling the playing field and uplifting women.

Now to end this article, women form roughly a half of the world’s population, so it is important they be accorded the voice that their numbers deserve.

Well then, do have a good day people.

Class will reconvene soon.

Till then, kwaheri.