Download Gender and Climate Change

Gender and Climate Change
Julian Walker
Development Planning Unit, University College London
[email protected]
Bridget Burns
WEDO
[email protected]
Gender?
“Gender” refers to social relations between, and among,
women and men and girls and boys
– Distinct from ‘Sex’, which refers to the biological
differences between women and men
– Distinct from ‘Women’ as the basis for a political,
institutional and analytical approach
Gender is socially constructed, and intersects with
other social relations (eg age, race, disability,
sexuality, religion).
Gender Equality
‘Gender Equality is the equal enjoyment by
women and men of socially valued goods,
opportunities, resources, and rewards. The aim is
not that women and men become the same, but
that their opportunities and life chances become
and remain equal.’
(OECD, DAC, 1998)
Gender Analysis
DPU Gender Policy and Planning Programme, 2013
Gender Roles: The Gender Division of Labour
Reproductive Role
Tasks associated with daily child rearing and domestic
chores
Productive Role
Work done by both women and men for pay in cash or kind
Community Managing
Role
Voluntary and unpaid activities at community level
Political Role
Participation in decision-making at all political levels on
behalf of interest-based constituencies
Access to and Control over Resources
Gender Needs
PRACTICAL GENDER NEEDS
The needs of women and men, girls and
boys which come out of existing gender
roles
STRATEGIC GENDER NEEDS
The needs of women and men, girls and
boys which challenge existing gender roles
What is the relationship between climate
change and gender, and how is it treated
in policy?
Climate
Change
Climate
Change
Gender
Division
of
Labour
Climate
Change
Gender
Division
of
Labour
How people experience climate change is
affected by their position in the gender division of
labour – ie their gender roles, and their access to
and control over resources…
Climate
Change
Gender
Division
of
Labour
Gendered
impacts of
climate
change
Climate
Change
Gender
Division
of
Labour
Gendered
impacts of
climate
change
Adaptation
and
Mitigation
practices
Climate
Change
Gender
Division
of
Labour
Gendered
impacts of
climate
change
Adaptation
and
Mitigation
practices
Climate
Change
Gender
Division
of
Labour
Gendered
impacts of
climate
change
Adaptation
and
Mitigation
practices
Climate
Change
Climate
Change
Interventions
Gender
Division
of
Labour
Gendered
impacts of
climate
change and
CC
Interventions
Adaptation
and
Mitigation
practices
Climate
Change
Climate
Change
Interventions
Gender
Division
of
Labour
Gendered
impacts of
climate
change and
CC
Interventions
Adaptation
and
Mitigation
practices
Climate
Change
Gender
Division
of
Labour
Gendered
impacts of
climate
change
Adaptation
and
Mitigation
practices
Arguments 1: The impacts of climate change are gendered
These gendered impacts reinforce the importance of climate
change as a development issue.
Environmental instability exacerbates existing inequalities.
Gendered Impacts of Climate Change
Arguments 1:Discussion
Focusing only on this set of arguments can lead to women
being portrayed as ‘vulnerable’ / ‘victims’? What are the
problems with this?
Climate
Change
Gender
Division
of
Labour
Gendered
impacts of
climate
change
Adaptation
and
Mitigation
practices
Arguments 2: Gender is instrumental to climate
change progress.
How does an awareness of gender/ response to gender
relations affect progress (+/-) on climate change?
Cancun Agreement I. 7 recognises “…that gender equality and the effective
participation of women and indigenous peoples are important for effective
action on all aspects of climate change”.
Arguments 2: A gender perspective is
instrumental to progress on climate change
Women, as well as men, are users of energy and natural resources. This
means that effective climate change policy needs to be based on gender
analysis to:
•Understand the roles and resource uses of different groups of women
and men (eg household vs productive energy consumption, different forms
of use of common property resources);
•Be based on the environmental knowledge of different groups of women
and men (eg resource use, DRR adaptation);
•Engage with attitudinal change amongst different groups of women and
men (appealing to gender norms about production or care?);
•Draw on the contributions of different groups of women and men
(environmental management, voluntary labour?);
•Appeal to different constituencies of women and men to provide political
support to climate change interventions.
Arguments 2: Discussion
What can be some problems of focusing on the positive role
of women as ‘altruistic stewards of the environment’?
Climate
Change
Climate
Change
Interventions
Gender
Division
of
Labour
Gendered
impacts of
climate
change and
CC
Interventions
Adaptation
and
Mitigation
practices
Arguments: 3
We need to recognise how climate change interventions
affect gender relations, gender equality and the gendered
impact of climate change (+/-)?
•Climate change interventions should be socially just.
•Inequality exacerbates a fragile, unsustainable global system.
Climate
Change
Climate
Change
Interventions
Gender
Division
of
Labour
Gendered
impacts of
climate
change and
CC
Interventions
Adaptation
and
Mitigation
practices
We therefore need to assess how climate change interventions approach
the gender division of labour. Do they:
• Make assumptions about it? (essentialisms and stereotypes?)
• Use a women/ men binary generalization? (ignoring intersectionality)
• Exploit it? (instrumentalizing women?)
• Attempt to transform gender relations to make them more just?
Cancun Agreement: E. Economic and social consequences of response
measures
… “responses to climate change should be coordinated with social and
economic development in an integrated manner, with a view to avoiding
adverse impacts on the latter, taking fully into account the legitimate priority
needs of developing country Parties for the achievement of sustained
economic growth and the eradication of poverty, and the consequences
for vulnerable groups, in particular women and children”.
Climate change interventions and gender justice
There is a need for the gender analysis of climate change interventions if
they are to be socially just. This means asking How do climate change
interventions affect the gender division of labour? Are the costs, and
benefits, distributed in ways which are socially just?:
•Do climate change interventions rely on unpaid, caring or community
work? (if so, whose unpaid labour? - gender, age, class?)
•Where climate change interventions create livelihood opportunities, who
has access to these? Where interventions affect livelihoods negatively, who
is affected?
•Who gets legal and/ or de facto access to resources delivered as part of
climate change interventions? (eg green climate funds, common property
regimes?). How can the intra-household allocation of resources be
influenced?
•Who has a voice/ representation in the governance of climate change
interventions? Which women/ men are excluded? (How) can climate
change governance contribute to gender equality in governance more
generally?
Gender in the UNFCCC
 1992 Rio Earth Summit
◦ Agenda 21
 Women have a vital role in environmental management
and development. Their full participation is therefore
essential to achieve sustainable development.
 Three Conventions
◦ United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (UNCBD)
◦ United Nations Convention on Combating Desertification
(UNCCD)
◦ United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC)
Gender in the UNFCCCBeginnings
• The UNFCCC was the only convention of the three
sustainable development conventions that did not
have women or gender language in its text
• In 2001, at COP 7 in Marrakesh, the first decision was
adopted at the UNFCCC recognizing gender equality,
particularly women’s participation as needed to
achieve progress on mitigating and adapting to
climate change at all levels; Gender equality was also
introduced as NAPA guidelines
Gender in the UNFCCCBeginnings
• Women and gender activists and civil society
organizations participating informally in the
UNFCCC negotiations for several years
including LIFE E.V., GenderCC and others
• Gender equality is challenging to introduce
into the technical negotiations
Gender in the UNFCCC- 2007
• Bali- 13th COP - Opportunity to change the
conversation and bring social issues into the
technical space of the UNFCCC
• Global Gender and Climate Alliance (GGCA),
founded by WEDO, IUCN, UNDP and UNEP,
formed with aim to have a new agreement on
climate change be gender-responsive
• Now over 80+ intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations are a part of this
alliance all in favor of gender-responsive climate
change policies, programs and practices
Gender in the UNFCCC- 2007 to
2010
• Outreach to 100+ Parties
• WEDO partnered with ENERGIA to coordinate
advocacy team
• WEDO and ENERGIA joined forces with
GenderCC, WECF, LIFE e.v. to establish
provisional Women and Gender Constituency
• More than 25 position papers
Gender in the UNFCCC- 2010 to
NOW
• Cancun Agreements secured eight references to
women and gender across all major sections
• Further references secured in decisions and
subsidiary bodies in 2011
• 2012, COP18 Gender Decision
Current activities: Gender in the
UNFCCC
• Adaptation—should be guided by gender-sensitive tools and
approaches (in National Adaptation Plans)
• Mitigation—Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest
Degradation (REDD) activities should include gender
considerations in safeguards; implementation of response
measures to climate change must give full consideration of the
positive and negative impacts on vulnerable groups, including
women
Current activities: Gender in the
UNFCCC
• Technology—preparation of technology projects and strategies
for implementation to take into account gender considerations
to support action on mitigation and adaptation and enhance
low-emission and climate-resilient development
• Finance—Green Climate Fund is taking a gender-sensitive
approach in its objectives and guiding principles, with
consideration to gender balance in its selection of board
members, secretariat and stakeholder participation and
addressing gender aspects in its operational modalities;
Adaptation Fund Board revised operational policies and
guidelines to encourage gender considerations in proposals
Current activities: Gender in the
UNFCCC
• Capacity Building—capacity building activities take into account
gender aspects. Work Programme of Article 6 to the Convention
on Education, Training and Outreach—Gender is a cross-cutting
issue and principles should be guided by a gender approach;
women’s participation is key in several elements of the work
programme
• Approaches to Loss & Damage associated with climate change
impacts—enhanced understanding of loss and damage impacts
on populations already rendered vulnerable, including women;
collection of gender-disaggregated data to asses risk of loss &
damage
Gender in the UNFCCC
• From women as passive victims of climate change to
agents of change
• From gender as an issue of women’s participation to
gender as a lens of analysis
• Evidenced by mainstreaming of gender equality
issues throughout all of the major thematic areas
Action Points ?
New Climate Change Agreement in 2015: Push for human rights
and gender equality focus
– Policies over the past years have shown that climate change has a
human face and responses to climate change must account for
differential needs linked to age, ethnicity, race, sex, geography
– A 2015 climate change agreement will have most impact if it is
human rights based and gender responsive.
Translation of existing policies into practice
– Many climate change policies are currently gender-sensitive, but
need to be implemented in practice. This implies:
• More specific policy language.
• Development and application of toolkits, knowledge products,
checklists, and procedures to implement policy commitments.
• Adequate resourcing (budgets and staffing) for policy commitments on
gender.
• Monitoring and reporting on progress on policy commitments on
gender equality. Defining indicators for progress.
Action Points ?
Policy Language:
Cancun C (Capacity Building) para 130:
Decides that capacity-building support to developing country Parties should be
enhanced with a view to strengthening endogenous capacities at the
subnational, national or regional levels, as appropriate, taking into account
gender aspects, to contribute to the achievement of the full, effective and
sustained implementation of the Convention…
What does this mean?
By the Numbers
• 2008-2012 Desk
Research on women’s
participation in the
UNFCCC to
understand gaps in
implementation of
decisions.
By the Numbers
By the Numbers
By the Numbers
By the Numbers
By the Numbers
• Gender imbalances vary across regions
• Lower portion of women in higher levels of
decision-making
• Capacity building and innovating strategies
are necessary to implement words on paper
to strengthen women’s participation;
particularly in the areas of finance and
technology
Beyond the Numbers
Beyond women’s participation, gender has been
recognized as a lens of analysis, and decisions have
included gender sensitive tools and indicators,gender
considerations in implementation and gender expertise
as a precondition for socially just, equitable and
effective climate policy.
This requires gender analysis tools for climate change
actions.
Resources on Gender and Climate
Change
• Six part resource kit giving an overview
of gender and climate change
connections
• Looks at policy, case studies, adaptation
analysis, finance and advocacy tips
• In partnership with the UNFPA, the
toolkit also explores connections
between population dynamics and
climate change, highlighting the impacts
of climate change on migration and
access to health services, particularly
reproductive health services
http://www.wedo.org/themes/sustainabledevelopment-themes/climatechange/climatechange-connections
Gender and Climate Fund
Governance
• Governing climate funds publication
produced prior to governing document
of GCF adopted
• Explains processes of gender
mainstreaming governance in other
global financing mechanisms
• Evidences the type of needed measures
to be in place in governance structures
of funds to make them gender-sensitive
in their operationalization
http://www.wedo.org/library/new-publication-governing-climatefunds-what-will-work-for-women
Gender and REDD+SES
• REDD+ safeguards exercise-gender
road maps (Tanzania, Uganda, Ghana,
Cameroon)
• Gender mainstreaming REDD+ Social
and Environmental Standards.
• The 2 booklet series includes lessons
learned from action research in 4
countries and a toolkit that has a
checklist for countries to develop genderresponsive REDD+ safeguards
http://www.wedo.org/library/wedo-launches-from-research-toaction-leaf-by-leaf-getting-gender-right-in-redd-ses
Thanks
Women’s Environment & Development
Organization
355 Lexington Avenue, 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10017
T: 212-973-0325 F: 212-973-0335
www.wedo.org
facebook.com/WEDOworldwide
@WEDO_worldwide
Development Planning Unit
University College London
34 Tavistock Sq
London WC1H9EZ
http://www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/dpu