Call to put women at centre of climate change responses
Gender equality and climate justice are inextricably linked and in any climate crisis, it is women and girls who often face the greatest impacts from environmental degradation and natural disasters. This was said by Joseph Raymond, the Chairperson of the SADC- PF Standing Committee on Gender Equality, Women advancement and Youth Development, who described the impacts as numerous and ranging from increased poverty to an escalation in gender- based violence.
Raymond spoke as her Committee convened for its statutory meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa, on 12 May, 2023 ahead of the 53rd Plenary Assembly session earmarked for July this year in the United Republic of Tanzania. The Committee focused on “the role of parliamentarians in promoting gender and climate justice agenda in the SADC region”.
She said women in Africa tend to be disproportionally affected by climate change impacts. Generally, the SADC region has a major challenge of gender inequality, with several member states working to eliminate both the evident and unseen barriers of gender inequality. “Statistically, women have continued to lag behind their male equivalents in all spheres of national development. Additionally, youth difficulties such as joblessness remain a major challenge, “she said. Raymond said the disparity in climate change impacts had been aggravated by existing gender inequalities which are magnified by gender norms and discrimination. Making a presentation to the Committee, Titus Gwemende, Africa Division Director Equity at the Open Society Foundation Africa said climate change is not gender- neutral.
“It affects us all but in different ways. It amplifies existing gender inequities in that if things are bad, they become worse for women,” he said adding that the world over, women depend more on land and agriculture than men, yet they have less access to land. According to Gwemende, with climate change or dry seasons, women spend more time looking for food and there are frightening statistics of women being raped while looking for food or firewood.
He said agriculture is the biggest employment sector for women, so when climate change affects agriculture, it reduces women’s ability to fend for themselves and to provide livelihoods.
“This adds pressure on girls who often have to leave school to help mothers put more food on the table,” he said.
He noted that when natural disasters like floods strike, women are less likely to survive as men and boys are saved more than women and girls“Often, women drown as they try to save their children,” he added. There is a health dimension to climate change too, Gwemende said. Women’s reproductive health rights are endangered by climate change and natural disasters and their access to healthcare is compromised. “But the most important thing to note is that climate change is a threat multiplier. That means it escalates socio- political and economic tensions and conflict in affected settlements,” Gwemende noted. He said when people move to a new place, they put pressure on resources triggering conflicts and women often suffer the most.
He argued that climate change was not just a health or women issue, but a national security issue that drives conflicts across the world.
It increases vulnerability to GBV, including conflict- related sexual violence, trafficking and child marriages.
Gwemende said when the land is no longer productive, some people sell children, especially girls into forced child marriages. And while climate change affects all in Africa, it affects women in different parts of the world in different ways, more acutely on women of color, older women, women with disabilities. He maintained that climate change cannot be addressed without a proper analysis of its causes and drivers.
Gwemende said although climate change impacts Africa most acutely, it did not originate in Africa which is already on net zero emissions. The biggest emissions come from North America, he said. He said the biggest source of energy in Africa remained coal, firewood and other combustibles with renewables generating a tiny fraction. He urged MPs not to look at climate change on the basis of the number of women raped while looking for firewood, but as an opportunity for women the youth. He said the key phenomenon within the climate change matrix was the rise in renewable energy.
“Some oil producing countries will have less influence than those producing renewable energy. So there is going to be a shift of power at a micro and macro level. “The clean energy revolution must shift gender stereotypes and dismantle gender equities,” he said adding that women must participate across the value chain. According to Gwemende, the ownership of clean energy sources, the production and the innovation around clean energy sources must involve women and the role of the legislator is to ensure that women get the capabilities to participate in the value chain of clean energy sources. Gwemende postulated that the shift to renewable energy might change political and economic power.
“That means the influence that accrues from the production of carbon resources will be weakened because everybody else is able to produce their own energy.”
He said climate change is caused by actions of men and the remedy lies in the “loss and damage facility” established at the COP 27 meeting.
Under this arrangement, money to repair the damage by floods, hurricanes and the like must go to the country that suffered from that phenomenon from those who caused climate change.
“A small country like Malawi must not borrow to rebuild roads because of climate change. Reconstruction in Mozambique must not be funded by a loan from the International Monetary Fund ( IMF),” he said.
He said MPs need to work on resourcing the loss and damage facility.
“This can be done through domestic capital markets. One can look at the example of pension funds. Few MPs are aware of the amount of money invested in pension funds or where the money is. Large grotesque shopping malls, tall empty buildings!” He said in Asia for instance, pension funds are the leaders in investing in clean energy. The Committee noted that 3,8 million people die annually from in house pollution globally. In Africa, that is mainly from smoke inhalation in village cooking huts and if Africa transitions from firewood to gas, millions of people, majority of them women and girls can be saved. The Committee agreed, also, on need to improve early warning systems to prevent a lot of people dying from floods or cyclones. It was also agreed that to improve women’s adaptive resilience in climate change, there is need to start talking about women not as victims of climate change but as active agents for adaptation and mitigation.
Zimbabwean lawmaker Goodlucky Kwaramba encouraged technocrats to make their sound knowledge widely accessible so that it reaches those in decision- making positions. Mozambican MP Maria Marta Fernando broke down and shed tears as she recalled how women and girls in her country had been rendered destitute when a cyclone hit her country. She called for special attention to the unique vulnerabilities of women and girls to climate change. Zambian Member of Parliament Jeffery Mulebwa was the only male MP who attended the meeting.