WHERE WE STAND

ELLE delves into the state of our world – and the important role women play in saving it.

BUSHFIRES, FLOODS AND HEATWAVES. THESE PAST FEW YEARS, LET ALONE MONTHS, HAVE SEEN A DRAMATIC RISE IN NATURAL DISASTERS. AND WITH INCREASINGLY GRIM PREDICTIONS FOR THE FUTURE, IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO DOUBT THE EFFECTS OF GLOBAL WARMING. ELLE DELVES INTO THE STATE OF THE PLANET AND THE CRUCIAL ROLE WOMEN AND INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES PLAY IN ITS OUTCOME. FROM THE INDELIBLE VOICES LEADING CLIMATE ACTION ACROSS THE GLOBE TO THE INSPIRING IDEAS ALREADY IN MOTION, NOW IS THE TIME TO STEP UP AND BE HEARD

the images of climate change seem straight out of a Hollywood sci-fi: raging bushfires that eat a football field per second; floods that flush away whole towns; skies so heavy with pollution that children wear masks to step outside. Except that it’s all true. How did we get here? Via progress, ironically. For every marvel industrialised life has given us – the ability to mass-produce clothing; to fly to India in a day; to get shampoo mailed to our house in 24 hours — it has exacted a cruel price. The world is now one degree warmer than it was pre-industrialisation. That may sound incremental, but the results are potentially catastrophic. Sea levels are rising, the temperature and acidity of the oceans are increasing and our ability to grow life-sustaining crops such as wheat, rice and corn is compromised. Globally, we are on track to raise the temperature at least two more degrees by the end of this century, and that’s only the best-case scenario.

If these predictions seem abstract, extreme weather events – floods, fires and heatwaves —- are devastatingly concrete, and here right now. According to scientists, bushfires around the world are on the rise due to carbon emissions and other planetwarming effects. Bushfire season is now starting earlier and lasting longer — you only need to look at our recent crisis, which burned millions of hectares. Siberia, southern Europe, Canada and Scandinavia have also been battling this new breed of mega-fire. Other regions are fighting the opposite problem. Tropical cyclones, hurricanes, floods and other dramatic storms are on the uptick. According to a 2018 study, the risk of flood

in Europe is increasing, meaning a greater number of people will be affected. Flood-prone Asia may be hit the hardest, economically speaking, and is already suffering: Vietnam, Myanmar, the Philippines and Thailand were among 10 countries in the world most affected by climate change between 1999 and 2018, according to the political and economic analysis organisation Germanwatch.

As ever, less developed countries are generally more affected by climate change. Heatwaves gripped developed countries like Japan and Germany last year, but they’re expected to become a critical problem in Africa. According to the International Panel On Climate Change, southern Africa’s temperatures are rising faster than the global average. Research shows that only a few cities in Africa are currently facing extreme heat, but this is set to increase dramatically across the continent in the coming years.

Though climate change will alter life for everyone, women are uniquely vulnerable. In fact, the 2016 Paris Agreement called for all parties that signed on to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women. Natural disasters hit poor communities the hardest, and according to UN Women, more women than men live in poverty. But that’s only one way to calculate why women suffer more. As Dr Maria Neira, the director or the World Health Organization’s department of Public Health, Environmental And Social Determinants Of Health, put it: “Women are the last to leave, every time.” When natural disaster strikes, women are less likely to survive than men. Why? “Women are at the home,” Neira says. “They are less likely to leave if their children are in jeopardy. They’re even going back if their children are in jeopardy,” or their elders. In the 2004 tsunami, the man-to-woman survival ratio was 3:1, and in some communities, all the dead were women.

UN figures also indicate that 80 per cent of people displaced by climate change are women. As it stands, an average of 21.5 million people have fled their homes due to sudden onset weather hazards every year since 2008. And the numbers will grow: the World Bank has projected that three regions (Latin America, subsaharan Africa and Southeast Asia) could see 143 million displaced people by 2050. To make matters worse, people who have to migrate because of climate change are offered none of the protections set up under the 1951 Refugee Convention.

Karuna Singh, the Earth Day Network’s country director in India, points out another harrowing aspect of displacement: “Women are more likely to be trafficked if they are away from their homes,” as well as exploited and sexually assaulted. Even a longer daily commute for resources can leave them exposed. In rural India (where about 60 per cent of the population resides), Singh notes, women are often the ones collecting water for the household, and when the closest source has dried up, they have to walk a further distance away to the next one.

Women are also exposed to pollution and its attendant risks on a daily basis. According to Neira, air pollution kills seven million people every year. Toxins in the air, including the insidious PM2.5 (particulate matter with a diameter of less than 2.5mm), can enter the lungs and potentially the bloodstream, contributing to lung cancer, heart disease, stroke and respiratory infections. Air pollution may conjure images of factories chugging out black smoke into the sky, but even on a small-scale it can damage our lungs. “Women are cooking with open fires and dangerous fuels, breathing in smoke,” Neira says.

There’s also the problem of women’s empowerment, or lack thereof. Not only do women often have less decision-making power than other men in their community, they’re also under-represented in government. The number of women leading delegations on climate change is below 30 per cent. Fortunately, the need to correct this imbalance has been recognised by groups such as the UN Framework Convention On Climate Change, which produces an annual gender composition report on the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement to demonstrate their progress towards gender balance in climate policy.

But for all the ways women are impacted by climate change, those same ways position us to be the leaders in the fight against it. Women are the linchpins of their communities, as evidenced in how we respond to rebuilding post-disaster. As a UN report states, “Women often play the largest role at family and community levels in building back after disasters. They look after children, shoulder the largest burden of unpaid care for the sick or injured and typically make decisions about resource use and investments in the interest and welfare of their children, families and communities.” In many developing countries, women are the primary agricultural producers, feeding their families and communities, and rebuilding the land when necessary. “Women,” Singh says, “are the repositories of knowledge about indigenous farming practices, seeds and organic farming.”

What makes climate change all the more heartbreaking is the modern world’s separation from nature is the very thing that’s threatening our existence – a concept many of us in Australia are only now, after a summer of catastrophic fires, starting to catch on to. But First Nations people have always known it. “There’s no separation between caring for Country in terms of trees and bees and animals, and caring for our people – they’re one and the same,” says Amy Thunig, a Gamilaroi woman, academic at Sydney’s Macquarie University and founder of the Blacademia podcast. Community and Country

“We’re now living with the consequences of 230 years of complete mismanagement of the land”

are indivisible, and it’s other ways of thinking that has caused the damage. It’s fairly well accepted now that European ways of farming are unsuited to the Australian climate and ecosystem, and all the vital knowledge Indigenous people have painstakingly accrued over millennia about how to live in this landscape was ignored by European settlers. “We’re now living with the consequences of 230 years of complete mismanagement of the land and complete mistreatment of the oldest continuous culture in the world, who didn’t survive for

120,000 years without knowing a thing or two,” Thunig says. “This extractive, exploitative approach to treating Country, which includes people and land and animals, has impacted First Nations people since invasion. The difference now is it’s starting to impact negatively on non-indigenous people.”

While a connection to nature is only now being realised as beneficial to our physical and mental health, it’s a cornerstone for First Nations people. “That phrasing of connecting to nature is really interesting,” Thunig says. “Because it implies separation between human existence and what is framed up as the ‘natural world’ in Eurocentric frameworks. That’s not how I was raised to see or engage with Country – we refer to Country as a sentient being. We are of the land, we feel connected to Country and we have obligations to Country. Connecting to nature isn’t a choice – we’re part of it.”

But Thunig senses a shift. “I’m hugely encouraged by the amount of non-indigenous people who really do get it. These conversations are being pushed into the mainstream – people recognise that the lands are really sick, and it’s not an accident. Allies are turning up and giving their time and fighting these fights and amplifying First Nations voices. That’s what keeps me going.”

We have the power to make choices in our daily lives that will slow down climate change. Renewable energy is on the rise around the world. Solar, wind and hydropower projects are rolling out at their fastest rate in four years. Factories and businesses are driving a solar power boom, but homes are playing a role, too. By 2024, there will be a predicted 100 million solar rooftops globally, with Australia reportedly having the highest proportion of households with solar panels on their rooftops of any country. But while individual efforts are important, advocacy and pushing for change at a higher level is key.

“The planet is warming at the fastest rate we’ve seen in

50 million years,” says scientist, climate change writer and conservationist Tim Flannery, speaking at a giving circle in Sydney for environmental advocacy group Groundswell. The enemy, he says, is fossil fuels, and the only way to change the system is to raise our voices and demand action. “We’ve got a government betraying our interests, so we need to do the heavy lifting,” he says. Petitioning your local member to actively support a move away from fossil fuels and drastically cut our emissions in order to get on track to reach zero by 2050 is one way to do just that. “This year we’ve seen the greatest threat and the greatest opportunity we’ve ever had.” Let’s not let it pass us by.

“The planet is warming at the fastest rate we’ve seen in 50 million years... [And] we’ve got a government betraying our interests, so we need to do the heavy lifting”