WUNRN
CLIMATE CHANGE CAN EXACERBATE WOMEN’S INEQUALITIES – SUPPORT WOMEN AS LEADERS IN CLIMATE DECISIONS, PROGRAMS
http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/12/opinion-climate-change-and-inequalities-how-will-they-impact-women/
Climate Change &
Inequalities: How Will They Impact Women?
By Susan McDadeReprint - Susan
McDade is the UN Development Programme (UNDP) Deputy Director for Latin America
and the Caribbean.
A woman
dries blankets after her home went underwater for five days in one of the
villages of India's Morigaon district. The woven bamboo sheet beyond the
clothesline used to be the walls of her family’s toilet. Credit: Priyanka
Borpujari/IPS
UNITED
NATIONS, Dec 12, 2014 (IPS) - Among all the impacts of
climate change, from rising sea levels to landslides and flooding, there is one
that does not get the attention it deserves: an exacerbation of inequalities,
particularly for women.
Especially
in poor countries, women’s lives are often directly dependent on the natural
environment.
The
success of climate change actions depend on elevating women’s voices, making
sure their experiences and views are heard at decision-making tables and
supporting them to become leaders in climate adaptation.
The success of climate change actions depend on elevating women’s
voices, making sure their experiences and views are heard at decision-making
tables and supporting them to become leaders in climate adaptation.
Women
bear the main responsibility for supplying water and firewood for cooking and
heating, as well as growing food. Drought, uncertain rainfall and deforestation
make these tasks more time-consuming and arduous, threaten women’s livelihoods
and deprive them of time to learn skills, earn money and participate in
community life.
But
the same societal roles that make women more vulnerable to environmental
challenges also make them key actors for driving sustainable development. Their
knowledge and experience can make natural resource management and climate
change adaptation and mitigation strategies at all levels more successful.
To
see this in action, just look to the Ecuadorian Amazon, where the Waorani women
association (Asociación de Mujeres Waorani de la Amazonia Ecuatoriana) is
promoting organic cocoa cultivation as a wildlife protection measure and a
pathway to local sustainable development.
With
support from the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP), the women’s association is
managing its land collectively and working toward zero deforestation, the
protection of vulnerable wildlife species and the production of certified
organic chocolate.
In
the process, the women are building the resilience of their community by
investing revenues from the cocoa business into local education, health and
infrastructure projects and successfully steering the local economy away from
clear-cutting and unregulated bushmeat markets.
The
association, which established a 5,000-hectare community forest, advocates for
public policies that stop deforestation and offer alternatives to
input-intensive commercial agriculture. It has also shared an organic
beekeeping model across more than 20 communities, providing an economic
alternative to illegal logging.
Empowered
women are one of the most effective responses to climate change. The success of
climate change actions depend on elevating women’s voices, making sure their
experiences and views are heard at decision-making tables and supporting them
to become leaders in climate adaptation.
By
ensuring that gender concerns and women’s empowerment issues are systematically
taken into account within environment and climate change responses, the world
leaders who wrapped up the U.N. Climate Change Conference 2014 in Lima, Peru,
can reduce, rather than exacerbate, both new and existing inequalities and make
sustainable development possible.