‘Empowering women critical to combating climate change’
DIRECTOR OF ZAYED PRIZE SAYS GROUP IS MOST AFFECTED BY EFFECTS OF GLOBAL WARMING
Empowering women is the best way to combat global warming, an expert has said. “Not only do women better understand the harmful effects of climate change, especially on the lives of those in rural and impoverished areas, but empowered women are one of the most effective responses to this phenomenon,” Dr Nawal Al Hosani, Director of the Zayed Future Energy Prize (ZFEP), Director of Sustainability at Masdar, told Gulf News.
In developing countries, women feel the effects of climate change more significantly than their male counterparts, Al Hosani said. There women must also gather food and water — but because agriculture has been gravely affected by climate change, these resources are becoming scarce and difficult to attain, she said.
Consequences
The health consequences of power shortages and subsequent reliance on other sources of energy can be damaging, especially for women. This is because cooking fuels like kerosene produce fumes that cause chronic respiratory illnesses, she said.
This was one of the conclusions reached by the United Nations Environment Programme report in 2011, Al Hosani said.
Experts also feel that there is a need for more women in the sustainability sector.
According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap report 2015, 41 per cent of tertiary-level students and graduates in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) studies are women and so are 60 per cent of PhD graduates.
“In the UAE, the enrolment of women in fields pertaining to renewable energy is relatively high. However, in many other cases, women often step away from engineering into more administrative roles or leave the field altogether to stay at home and take care of their families,” Dr. Al Hosani had said earlier.
The Zayed Future Energy Prize, which will be held on January 18, alongside the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week from January 16-23, is aiming to bring about this change.