{"id":51885,"date":"2024-06-28T08:45:49","date_gmt":"2024-06-28T07:45:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/?p=51885"},"modified":"2024-06-28T10:42:37","modified_gmt":"2024-06-28T09:42:37","slug":"un-action-on-gender-and-climate-faces-uphill-climb-as-warming-hits-women-hard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2024\/06\/28\/un-action-on-gender-and-climate-faces-uphill-climb-as-warming-hits-women-hard\/","title":{"rendered":"UN action on gender and climate faces uphill climb as warming hurts women"},"content":{"rendered":"

In poor households without taps, the responsibility for collecting water typically falls on women and girls. As climate change makes water scarcer and they have to travel further and spend more time fetching it, their welfare suffers.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a new study<\/a> quantifying how gender shapes people\u2019s experiences of climate change, scientists at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) found that, by 2050, higher temperatures and changing rainfall patterns could mean women globally spend up to 30% more time collecting water.<\/p>\n

PIK guest researcher Robert Carr, the study\u2019s lead author, explained how this results in more physical strain, psychological distress and lost time that could otherwise be spent on education, leisure or employment.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven when people talk about gendered climate impacts, there is very little attention on time poverty and how that affects someone\u2019s ability to improve their life,\u201d Carr told Climate Home.<\/p>\n

In addition, the cost of lost working time for women affects economies, and is projected to reach tens to hundreds of millions of US dollars per country annually by 2050, the study said.<\/p>\n

Is water provision<\/strong> in drought-hit Zambia climate \u2018loss and damage\u2019 or adaptation?<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Carr noted that the data<\/a> underpinning PIK\u2019s study only recently became available and is a valuable tool for connecting women\u2019s welfare issues to climate impacts, with more such analysis expected as new datasets emerge.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut more still needs to be done to act on, and implement, research findings like ours at the local and national levels,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

For that to happen, research like PIK\u2019s has to resonate in government offices and negotiating rooms at UN climate talks, where gender activists see 2024 as a milestone year. Countries are expected to renew key global initiatives for advancing gender-responsive climate action and improving gender balance in official delegations at UN negotiations.<\/p>\n

Gendered impacts of climate change<\/b><\/h3>\n

So far progress has been slow. After more than a decade of working towards those aims within the UN climate process, wilder weather and rising seas are still disproportionately affecting women and gender-diverse people, as global warming continues apace.<\/p>\n

For example, female-headed rural households experience higher income losses<\/a> due to extreme weather events like floods and droughts, through impacts on farming and other activities.<\/p>\n

Rates of child marriage<\/a> and violence against women and girls<\/a> have been shown to increase during and after climate disasters. And studies have identified a positive correlation<\/a> between drought-induced displacement and hysterectomies among female farm labourers in India.<\/p>\n

At the same time, barriers like caring responsibilities, lack of funding, difficulties in obtaining visas<\/a> and even sexual harassment in UN spaces persist, standing in the way of women\u2019s equal participation in the climate negotiating rooms.<\/p>\n

Yet, despite the mounting urgency, governments made little progress in talks on gender issues at the mid-year UN conference in Bonn this month.<\/p>\n

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Delegates arrive for a workshop on implementing the UNFCCC gender action plan and on future work to be undertaken on gender and climate change, at the Bonn Climate Conference on June 3, 2024. (Photo: IISD\/ENB – Kiara Worth)<\/p><\/div>\n

Advocates had hoped to leave the German city with a new, stronger version of the UN\u2019s flagship gender initiative, known as the Lima Work Programme on Gender<\/a> (LWP). Instead, discussions were tense and slow, leaving the LWP \u2013 which is supposed to be renewed by 2025 \u2013 to be finalised in November at the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan.<\/p>\n

No rise in women negotiators
\n<\/b><\/h3>\n

Claudia Rubio, gender working group lead for the Women and Gender Constituency<\/a> at the UN, said the LWP has enabled a better understanding of \u201cwhat is prohibiting women and other genders from being in [UN negotiating] spaces\u201d.<\/p>\n

But Mwanahamisi Singano, senior global policy lead at the Women\u2019s Environment and Development Organisation (WEDO), reminded delegates at a workshop in Bonn that \u201ctime has not been the magic ingredient in bridging disparities between women and men in participation\u201d, which has \u201cstagnated<\/a> or even declined when it comes to COPs\u201d.<\/p>\n