The Gender Consequences of Global Warming

My colleague’s previous post began “Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day.” Hmmm . . . I wonder . . . what would happen if you gave a woman a fish? Or a can of carbon-safe tuna for that matter?! My questions might seem trivial in the face of an age old adage. Or even misplaced in the climate change debate, given that global warming affects everyone. However, when exploring the problem from a human rights perspective, it becomes clear that there are gender differences.  Noting these differences is essential to developing sustainable and just climate solutions for this generation and those to come.

The Gender Consequences of Global Warming
Illustrations of climate change’s gendered dimensions abound. For example, more women than men died during the 2003 European heat wave and as a result of Hurricane Katrina in the United States. The conflict in Darfur, largely considered to be related to a climate change-induced draught, has created over 200,000 women refugees living in camps across the border in Chad. Following Hurricane Mitch in Nicaragua, over 30% of survivors reported a substantial increase in the prevalence of violence against women. That same hurricane doubled the number of women solely maintaining their households. A recent London School of Economics study revealed that, in natural disasters occurring in 141 countries, women suffered far greater casualties than men. 

These examples clearly point to the human rights implications of climate change for women. Women’s civil and political rights are affected when severe weather patterns disproportionately deprive women of the right to life. Forced migration and refugee status also endanger women’s rights to liberty and security of person.  Access to justice is limited in climate crisis situations where the rule of law is disrupted and women’s already tenuous standing before the law is weakened among competing priorities and scarce resources.Similarly, climate change implicates women’s socio-economic rights. Climate change threatens standards of living for women who are forced to live with domestic violence and attendant reduced decision-making power. In areas where women are traditionally farmers and food producers, drastic weather-related events cause economic loss and hardship. In countries where women already suffer disproportionate access to health care, increased disease vectors related to changing warming patterns have negative consequences for a woman’s right to the highest attainable health standards.

The Way Forward?
What is being done to take account of the gender consequences of climate change? Sadly, very little. Neither the UN Framework Convention for Climate Change nor the Kyoto Protocol  mentions the words women or gender. Rebecca Pearl of the Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) has noted that only four or five countries have incorporated gender perspectives and concerns into their climate change agendas.While there has been little progress at the international level, women’s civil society organizations have begun to make the connection between women’s human rights and climate change. Organizations like WEDO, the Council of Women World Leaders and the Heinrich Boll Foundation have joined together to influence the international climate change debate and specifically, to highlight the ways climate change affects women’s human rights.

Advocacy groups are making suggestions for equitable climate change solutions. For example, one project provides women in developing countries with fuel efficient, smokeless stoves. These stoves both reduce women’s fuel costs and decrease the amount of carbon dioxide released into the air. Advocacy groups are also asking specific gender questions in shaping policy and laws which are designed to mitigate climate change. These questions include: how can women and men best be informed about how their behavior affects climate change? How do climate change mitigation policies impact men and women differently in their daily lives?

Climate justice is gender justice. We must see climate change as a human rights issue and use the framework of human rights law to address the specific – and at times, disproportionate – impact on women. Focusing on the gender specific consequences of, and solutions to, climate change will ensure that future generations of women and men alike will have the benefit of our climate legacy.  “Give a woman her human rights and she’ll thrive for generations.”

Would You Buy a Can of Tuna That Said Carbon Safe?

           Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day.  Buy a can of tuna with a carbon safe label, and ensure your children’s children have an Earth as healthy as ours.

 

            Icebergs are melting.  Islands are projected to disappear.  No matter who paints the picture, whether the IPCC or Al Gore, we know what’s going to happen.  The United States government, however, is still not acting and we as a voters seem content to wait around, hoping new leadership will finally sign the Kyoto Protocol or whatever the next regime is named.  As Thomas Friedman pointed out in the New York Times six months ago, “We in America talk like we’re already the ‘greenest generation’ . . . [but] we have not even begun to be serious about the costs, the effort and the scale of change required to shift our country, and eventually the world, to a largely emission free energy infrastructure over the next 50 years.”  Click here for the full article.

             So if the American electorate is not yet serious about acting on climate change, is it possible for American consumers to get serious about the costs of a low carbon lifestyle and take real steps to safeguard the planet for future generations?  One way is to set up a carbon-related eco-labeling system.  Aaron Cosbey and Richard Tarasofsky suggest that energy-related eco-labeling can be a useful instrument to promote goods and services that fulfill Kyoto commitments. (See the full Chatham Report.)   These labels give consumers specific energy consumption information, to enable them to understand the impact their purchases have on climate change.  Theoretically, consumers would then choose products with the lowest carbon footprint and Adam Smith’s invisible hand would guide our generation to a low carbon lifestyle.  This consumer labeling strategy has already been tried out: labels such as “Fair Trade,” “RUGMARK,” “Dolphin Safe,” and “Energy Star” have successfully targeted both poverty and child labor abuse in developing countries, as well as safeguarding the environment.

            How then might this work?  One possibility would be a voluntary “Carbon Safe” label for all products and services created by businesses in compliance with Kyoto standards.  This labeling opportunity would only be available for businesses located in countries meeting their emission targets under Kyoto.  Given an increased demand for goods labeled as “Carbon Safe,” this might encourage non-party countries, like the United States, to join the Protocol.  But it might also have negative consequences because under the Protocol, each country has a “common but differentiated responsibility” and thus some have no affirmative duty to reduce emissions.  Businesses might move to these countries and create their products without carbon restraints, yet still receive the “Carbon Safe” label.  Consumers would purchase the product thinking they were decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, when in reality they had encouraged business to move to a developing country and thereby escape the reach of Kyoto.

           

            A different approach would be to label each product with its individual carbon footprint. Such methods are being used in England. .  But to avoid putting businesses in developing countries at a disadvantage, technical exchange would be required to ensure participation in the labeling program.  Many businesses in developing countries may not have the capacity to calculate the carbon footprint of their products.

 

            The idea of carbon eco-labeling is exciting and real.  Questions about what it will look like and who will lead the way are important to debate.  Future generations are waiting for our answer.