(Photo used from the International Monetary Fund at rhe following link) https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2021/09/advancing-gender-equality-through-climate-action-COP26-trevelyan
By Casey Moore, 21 November 2023
Imagine a young girl in Ethiopia out on a short walk before school, but instead of wearing a backpack with her books and learning materials, she has a water can strapped to her back. This girl cannot go to school today, because she must go fetch water for the household. Meanwhile, her brother is on his way to school, but this girl here will miss out today.
Amongst many global challenges, climate change and gender inequality are tightly woven together and are at the forefront of many teachers’ and students’ minds. How can we legally ensure the access to education for all girls and boys? In order to present an effective solution, it is paramount for one to understand the definitions and the relationship between the two. “Climate change, as defined by [https://climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org/overview] is the significant variation of average weather conditions becoming, for example, warmer, wetter, or drier—over several decades or longer. It is the longer-term trend that differentiates climate change from natural weather variability. While gender inequality, defined by [https://climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org/overview], is described as, the legal, social and cultural situation in which sex and/or gender determine different rights and dignity for women and men, which are reflected in their unequal access to or enjoyment of rights, as well as the assumption of stereotyped social and cultural roles. Taken together, women and girls are more vulnerable to climate change, such as taking on provider roles and fetching water for the family, used for labor to repair fields, or playing the role of a mother in her absence.
The impacts of changing climate is NOT gender-neutral.Sims (2021) notes that “It’s estimated that at least 200 million adolescent girls living in the poorest communities face a heightened risk from the effects of climate change.” This number is feeigtening for the future of ALL women. Particularly in developing countries, like countries in Africa, where women have to bear the weight of climate change and have to leave or quit school to tend to family livelihood. Think back to the story in the beginning of this article. The brother didnt skip school to fetch water that day, the girl did. Although Climate change is fairly recent, this problem stems from a much deeper, already existing gender disparity in roles, responsibilities, and access to much needed resources.
In many societies it is the norm for women to take on the role of collecting water, gathering wood, and farming for food or natural resources. These responsibilities of women and girls are becoming more challenging with water scarcity and extreme weather events (such as droughts, hurricanes, and extreme heat) that are wreaking havoc on agricultural farming and sources needed for food and clean water. Children are being affected the most from the recent climate change. According to Save the Children (2021), “A child born in 2020 will experience on average twice as many wildfires, 2.8 times the exposure to crop failure, 2.6 times as many drought events, 2.8 times as many river floods, and 6.8 times more heatwaves across their lifetimes, compared to a person born in 1960’ (Save the Children, 2021).” Of those children the link between climate change and girls’ education is deeply intertwined and tightly connected. “Climate change increases girls’ domestic work, taking time away from school and study (Peek et al., 2018).” There is a direct link between climate change, and the responsibilities that women and girls have to take on during these times and their education. They are often forced to drop out early from secondary school to help out around the house or get jobs to help support their household. Oftentimes girls drop out of school at a very young age and are forced to marry during famines to earn money for the household (Peek et al., 2018). One participant in a study in Africa stated, “Poverty is a big constraint. But the problem is that when it comes to gender it becomes double. It is double because for example, if you look at a family that is poor, definitely it is the boy who will be taken to school (Agostino, 2010).”
In conclusion, the relationship between climate change and gender inequality continually proves to be a problem in low and lower income countries and it demands our attention. We must acknowledge and address these interconnected problem sets so that we can develop solutions to end gender inequality caused by climate change. In doing so we link Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 5 (Gender Inequality) and SDG 13 (Climate Action) together to develop outcomes that develop a way forward for both.
References:
Agostino, 2010. Gender equality, climate change and education for sustainability. https://www.e4conference.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Equals24.pdf.
Climate Change Knowledge Portal. For development Practitionirs and Policymakers. https://climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org/overview#:~:text=Climate%20change%20is%20the%20significant,change%20from%20natural%20weather%20variability.
Pankhurst, C. (2022) ‘Girls’ education and climate change: A critical review of the literature’, Accountability for Gender Equality in Education (AGEE) Working Paper, London: Centre for Education and International Development, UCL.
Peek, L., Abramson, D. M., Cox, R. S., Fothergill, A., & Tobin, J. (2018). Children and disasters. In H. Rodríguez, W. Donner, & J. Trainor (Eds.), Handbook of disaster research. Handbooks of sociology and social research. Springer. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63254-4_13.
Save the Children. (2021). Born into the Climate Crisis: Why we must act now to secure children’s rights. Available at: https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/pdf/borninto-the-climate-crisis.pdf/.
Sims, K. (2021). Education, Girls’ Education and Climate Change. K4D Emerging Issues Report 29. Institute of Development Studies. DOI: 10.19088/K4D.2021.044
