Last month marked the 45th International Women’s Day since its adoption by the United Nations (UN) in 1977. The theme for this year was “Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow” and focused on “advancing gender equality in the context of the climate crisis.” The importance of advancing equality between genders is well known. Equally well-known is the UN’s emphasis on the catastrophic impact of climate change. But why was this year’s theme intertwined with the climate crisis – an important issue, no doubt, but one that is seemingly unrelated to women and gender equality?
Climate change is one of the most alarming crises of our times. Unless drastic reforms are adopted, the emission of greenhouse gases will continue to increase as population and energy demand grow. This could lead to the dreaded 1.5°C global warming level, after which life on Earth will become plagued with dangerous climate hazards. The rise of climate extremes has already wiped many species, both on land and in the oceans. The rates of food-borne and water-borne diseases, as well as health complications due to wildfire smoke exposure, have increased while health services have been interrupted by floods and hurricanes.
But floods, hurricanes, forest fires and droughts are not blind destructive forces of nature; they see colour and gender as much as society does.
Seventy percent of the 1.3 billion people living in poverty are women, foreseeably, 80% of climate refugees are also women and girls. Climate change induced water scarcity has also been documented to disproportionately affect women’s safety and health. Furthermore, vulnerability to climate change is disproportionally distributed, with water and food insecurity being most acutely felt in Africa and Latin America. (Admittedly, these regions are not the ones producing exorbitant amounts of greenhouse gases, nor do they account for the world’s highest overconsumption trends that are at the root of this crisis.) Even within regions of equal climate change vulnerability, socio-economic disparity creates substantial differences in people’s ability to adapt or even survive environmental events. It is for this reason that sustainability and equality are indivisible; nature is cruel and unforgiving, but, through systematic oppression, we have also made her downright discriminatory.
It is worth noting that marginalized groups, such as women and Indigenous Peoples, possess unique knowledge and experience that would make their inclusion in climate-action invaluable. Women dominate global seafood production and are important participants in the agricultural sector. A 2019 study found that women’s representation in governance is correlated with more stringent climate change policies resulting in more effective action and lower carbon dioxide emissions.
Inherent to the environmentalist cause is a commitment to the implications of climate change on human rights. After all, the objective is to protect the environment, not for its abiotic elements, but to sustain a dignified life for the people on this planet. Climate action cannot be defined through the lens of privilege. Though climate change has produced various novel challenges, it directly maps on to existing inequalities, further entrenching its impacts on marginalized populations. Where ecological ethics loses sight of this important context, it loses sight of its own mandate.
Photo by L.Filipe C.Sousa on Unsplash
