3rd June 2008
Food and Climate Change
In this section of our website we're hoping to provide you with some food for thought, facts and figures and inspiration to become active. There are lots of different ideas about what we need to do to stop catastrophic climate change. Here we present some of them in the hope to stimulate a productive debate about how a sustainable future might look.
Women and climate change
This is a general discussion document about a women's rights-based approach to climate change. There is a small section specifically on food & its probably best to refer to the Food and Water Securityfact sheet for more information.
Introduction
Women living in poverty are the most threatened by the dangers that stem from global warming. They are also key actors in ensuring their communities' ability to cope with and adapt to climate change. When we approach climate change from the perspective of women, we see the ways that women are made vulnerable to threats associated with climate change, and that women's skills and leadership are crucial for people's survival and recovery. Therefore, defending the full range of women's human rights within the context of addressing climate change is essential both to protecting women themselves and to cultivating their capacity for leadership—on which so many lives depend.
What's Gender Got to Do with It?
Most approaches to tackling the threats of climate change focus on scientific and technological aspects of the problem, ignoring its social impact. Both the Kyoto Protocol and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change neglect to even mention gender. Yet developing a gender analysis — an understanding of the ways that men and women are differently affected by climate change and respond differently to its threats — is increasingly crucial to saving lives, saving resources, and quite possibly, saving the life of the planet.
What's Poverty Got to Do with It?
The effects of climate change threaten everyone, but they do not threaten all people equally. Poor people whose governments are unable or unwilling to respond to their needs are most at risk. Since 1990, more than 90 percent of "natural disasters" have occurred in poor countries. Worldwide, the majority of poor people are women.
People who have been displaced from their lands and forced to live in lowlands are at risk of flooding and mudslides.
People already denied health care, adequate food, and clean water have the least resistance to food shortages and increased incidence of disease.
People living in rural areas and regions neglected by government are often denied adequate warning of disasters and adequate resources for rescue and relief efforts.
People who are denied information, education, technology, skills, and infrastructure have the least capacity to adapt to the effects of climate change.
What Are the Effects of Global Warming and Disasters on Women?
DISASTERS — triggered by increases in extreme weather:
A tidal wave is a natural disaster until it hits the shore. Then it becomes a social issue that affects women and men differently because of the distinct social roles and expectations that they fulfill.
During the 2005 Asian tsunami, many more women than men were killed, in part because:
men ran to safety while women stayed behind to rescue children and the elderly;
more men than women had been taught to swim; and
women stayed indoors because of social prohibitions against leaving home unaccompanied.
Yet, in the aftermath of the tsunami, women managed to extend their social networks and intensify their roles of caring for families and communities to meet the extraordinary needs of survivors. The most effective relief and recovery operations relied on and supported local women, recognizing the tremendous burden women carried; the specific threats women faced; and the skills that women possess.
FOOD INSECURITY — resulting from droughts and floods caused by disrupted rainfall patterns:
Because of gender discrimination, women and girls eat last and least when food is made scarce (including pregnant and nursing women, who have the greatest need for nutritious food). Yet, women plant, produce, procure, and prepare most of the world's food: women are responsible for approximately 75 percent of household food production in sub-Saharan Africa; 65 percent in Asia; and 45 percent in Latin America. In most communities, women hold the most reliable knowledge about promoting food security, preserving threatened food supplies, and ensuring their families' survival in the face of shortages.
SEVERE FLOODING—as a result of rising sea levels:
Women's traditional knowledge about building wind-resistant housing, planting trees to mitigate erosion, preserving seeds, composting to improve soil quality, and conserving safe drinking water have protected generations of communities from the worst affects of flooding.
WATER SHORTAGES — particularly in the Middle East and on the Indian subcontinent:
The time-consuming task of gathering and transporting water generally falls to women. As water becomes scarce, women's workload increases dramatically. Girls' school enrollment drops as they trek longer distances to find water. During water shortages, women's knowledge of managing and maintaining water sources becomes critical to communities' survival.
In Kenya, the women of our sister organizations are enduring a seven-year drought that is killing the livestock on which pastoralist Peoples depend. Worsening poverty has led to a sharp rise in forced child marriages. As men struggle to replace income from lost livestock, increasing numbers of them resort to trading their daughters—some as young as eight or nine—for bridal dowries.
WORSENING HEALTH—caused by long-term heat stress, malnutrition, and pollution:
Worldwide, the compounded effect of poverty and gender discrimination is the single gravest threat to women's health: women have the least access to health services, nutritious food, clean water, and opportunities for rest. As overall human health declines, women face the greatest risk of illness, as well as unsustainable work burdens of caring for the sick. Although they are the most threatened, women provide critical resources for maintaining health.
Women's capacity to activate social networks for caregiving, their stewardship of medicinal plants, their expertise in traditional medicine, and — of course — the health of women themselves must be protected in order to defend women's human rights and enable communities to adapt to increased health threats associated with climate change.
In Sudan, drought has decimated the grazing areas of livestock on which half of all rural nomadic people depend. The dry soil has been further depleted by wind erosion. As larger areas of land become arid, public health is threatened by the lack of food, water, and the loss of biodiversity, including medicinal plants. The single gravest threat to public health is ongoing warfare, itself fueled by competition over water and arable land.
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