Simply put, the effects of climate change are worse for women than for men. The impacts of climate change will disproportionately target the world’s poorest nations far more severely than developed countries, and unfortunately, the effects are not gender-neutral.
Climate change will disproportionately impact women’s health and livelihoods because women tend to be overrepresented amongst the global poor, and as a result, have increased exposures to the dangers of climate change. People in poverty are already underserved and have restricted or no access to resources. Climate change causes extreme weather events. These extreme weather events affect women more than men in that more women are more likely to die during extreme weather events, based upon information from the UN that explains poverty, social restrictions, roles in decision-making, and even swimming skills are heavy influences in a woman’s survival. If women are able to survive and make it to an emergency shelter, they are at increased risk of violence.
Compared to men, women are more likely to be exposed to mosquito-born diseases and other illnesses. Gender roles and daily activities often assign women tasks that require them to collect water and harvest food, putting them in close contact with mosquitos. Additionally, in many cultures women are caretakers, so when a child or a man gets sick, a woman is there to care for the other person and is put at risk more than a man would be. This also prevents women from being able to work and lessens their economic productivity. Even cooking with biomass fuels, like wood, creates an indoor pollution that women and girls are more often exposed to. This exposure can contribute poor lung function, tuberculosis, and pneumonia.
As droughts intensify, so will food insecurity, water scarcity, and land-resource shortages. According to a report by the Victoria State Government in Australia, women have greater needs for some nutrients than men and boys and food insecurity will also hit women harder. In some cultures, men eat first and then women eat once the men have had their fill. Since women often are the ones tasked with collecting water, they will have travel farther distances to collect water. It’s physically more strenuous, but also decreases women’s participation in social, economic, and educational activities, which can limit gender equality. Conflicts and enforced migrations can arise out of food, water, and land insecurity, which also lead to increased violence against women and girls.
Being poor is already a disadvantage, but being a woman is even more disadvantaged and climate change will only exacerbate the problems for women more so than for men. As the transmission seasons of vector-borne diseases lengthen and their geographic ranges increase, disease will also be on the move because of human migration and the increase of populations of the displaced that live in slums. The UN reports that climate change could push up to 122 million more people into extreme poverty by 2030. This impacts already poor countries, where women often face extreme gender inequality and limited roles of power and status, meaning that women’s health needs often take the backseat to men and climate change will deepen those inequalities.
Jennifer Kim 