Climate change affects all of us, but not in the same manner. The group of people who experience the most severe effects of climate change are mostly in the developing countries, where people are dealing with climate change on an everyday basis. Mud slides, draughts, floods, acid rain, lack of clean water, desertification, tropical storms and other drastic changes make the agriculture and fishery increasingly difficult. This makes life much harder for the poorest people in the world. And among them, women are worst off.

 

More and more researches show that climate change is not gender neutral. Women form a very large share of the poor in countries all over the world. Those living in rural areas –especially in developing countries- are highly dependent on local natural resources for their livelihood, because of their responsibility to secure water, food and energy for cooking and heating. The effects of climate change make it more difficult for them to access these precious resources. They also very often face a marginalized status, social and political disadvantages as well as a very limited access to decision-making.

 

However, although women are more hardly hit by climate change, they also prove to be very powerful agents of change. Case studies and grassroots organisations make the case that tackling climate change and gender discrimination are not two separate tasks. Climate change is an opportunity to use the untapped potential of women throughout the world and tackle climate change more rapidly and effectively. Rather than accepting the traditional gendered roles, challenging them actually leads us to better solutions for adaptation, and even for mitigation of climate change.

 

More and more, women in the world are getting organised to speak out about how climate change is impacting their lives and fight for climate justice. A UN specific agency as well as different types of platforms are being created in order to better share information and resources on the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women and a growing number of experts are calling for gender analysis to be applied to all actions on climate change and that gender experts are consulted in climate change processes. The issue will also be raised in the next COP17/CMP7 negotiations in Durban by future President Ms Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, current Minister of International Relations and Co-operation of the Republic of South Africa.

 

In order to have a better idea about how women are affected by climate change in their daily lives, the Greens launched an essay contest last March. Participants had 3 months to submit their paper. In total, the group received 75 different pieces of work, mostly from the Southern hemisphere. The three winners of the contest will be presenting their work at the Green Summer University at the end of this week.

 

The fact that only five essays came from Europe confirms that the subject is perceived in a much stronger way in the regions that are already quite affected by global warming. The Greens therefore believe that it is of key importance to raise awareness at EU level - where the majority of actors does not yet intuitively link climate change and gender issues. The group will work on an own initiative report further this year (*).

 

 

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(*)On 12th October, the European Parliament Committee responsible for gender issues will organise a conference on this particular theme.  Green MEP Nicole Kiil-Nielsen will be responsible for a non-initiative report, which will be voted by the Parliament in February next year.