Gender and Climate Change

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Gender and Climate Change
Julian Walker Development Planning Unit,
University College London Julian.walker_at_ucl.ac.uk
Bridget Burns WEDO bridget_at_wedo.org
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Gender?

• Gender refers to social relations between, and
  among, women and men and girls and boys
• Distinct from Sex, which refers to the
  biological differences between women and men
• Distinct from Women as the basis for a
  political, institutional and analytical approach
• Gender is socially constructed, and intersects
  with other social relations (eg age, race,
  disability, sexuality, religion).

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Gender Equality

• Gender Equality is the equal enjoyment by women
  and men of socially valued goods, opportunities,
  resources, and rewards. The aim is not that women
  and men become the same, but that their
  opportunities and life chances become and remain
  equal.
• (OECD, DAC, 1998)

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Gender Analysis
DPU Gender Policy and Planning Programme, 2013
Gender Roles The Gender Division of Labour Gender Roles The Gender Division of Labour Gender Roles The Gender Division of Labour
Reproductive Role Tasks associated with daily child rearing and domestic chores Tasks associated with daily child rearing and domestic chores
Productive Role Work done by both women and men for pay in cash or kind Work done by both women and men for pay in cash or kind
Community Managing Role Voluntary and unpaid activities at community level Voluntary and unpaid activities at community level
Political Role Participation in decision-making at all political levels on behalf of interest-based constituencies Participation in decision-making at all political levels on behalf of interest-based constituencies
Access to and Control over Resources Access to and Control over Resources Access to and Control over Resources
Gender Needs Gender Needs Gender Needs
PRACTICAL GENDER NEEDS The needs of women and men, girls and boys which come out of existing gender roles PRACTICAL GENDER NEEDS The needs of women and men, girls and boys which come out of existing gender roles STRATEGIC GENDER NEEDS The needs of women and men, girls and boys which challenge existing gender roles
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What is the relationship between climate change
and gender, and how is it treated in policy?
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Climate Change
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Climate Change
Gender Division of Labour
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Climate Change
Gender Division of Labour
How people experience climate change is affected
by their position in the gender division of
labour ie their gender roles, and their access
to and control over resources
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Climate Change
Gender Division of Labour
Gendered impacts of climate change

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Climate Change
Gender Division of Labour
Gendered impacts of climate change
Adaptation and Mitigation practices
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Climate Change
Gender Division of Labour
Gendered impacts of climate change
Adaptation and Mitigation practices
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Climate Change
Gender Division of Labour
Gendered impacts of climate change
Adaptation and Mitigation practices
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Climate Change
Gender Division of Labour
Gendered impacts of climate change and CC
Interventions
Adaptation and Mitigation practices
Climate Change Interventions
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Climate Change
Gender Division of Labour
Gendered impacts of climate change and CC
Interventions
Adaptation and Mitigation practices
Climate Change Interventions
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Climate Change
Gender Division of Labour
Gendered impacts of climate change
Adaptation and Mitigation practices
Arguments 1 The impacts of climate change are
gendered These gendered impacts reinforce the
importance of climate change as a development
issue. Environmental instability exacerbates
existing inequalities.
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Gendered Impacts of Climate Change
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Arguments 1Discussion

• Focusing only on this set of arguments can lead
  to women being portrayed as vulnerable /
  victims? What are the problems with this?

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Climate Change
Gender Division of Labour
Gendered impacts of climate change
Adaptation and Mitigation practices
Arguments 2 Gender is instrumental to climate
change progress. How does an awareness of gender/
response to gender relations affect progress
(/-) on climate change? Cancun Agreement I. 7
recognises that gender equality and the
effective participation of women and indigenous
peoples are important for effective action on all
aspects of climate change.
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Arguments 2 A gender perspective is instrumental
to progress on climate change

• Women, as well as men, are users of energy and
  natural resources. This means that effective
  climate change policy needs to be based on gender
  analysis to
• Understand the roles and resource uses of
  different groups of women and men (eg household
  vs productive energy consumption, different forms
  of use of common property resources)
• Be based on the environmental knowledge of
  different groups of women and men (eg resource
  use, DRR adaptation)
• Engage with attitudinal change amongst different
  groups of women and men (appealing to gender
  norms about production or care?)
• Draw on the contributions of different groups of
  women and men (environmental management,
  voluntary labour?)
• Appeal to different constituencies of women and
  men to provide political support to climate
  change interventions.

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Arguments 2 Discussion

• What can be some problems of focusing on the
  positive role of women as altruistic stewards of
  the environment?

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Climate Change
Gender Division of Labour
Gendered impacts of climate change and CC
Interventions
Adaptation and Mitigation practices
Climate Change Interventions

• Arguments 3
• We need to recognise how climate change
  interventions affect gender relations, gender
  equality and the gendered impact of climate
  change (/-)?
• Climate change interventions should be socially
  just.
• Inequality exacerbates a fragile, unsustainable
  global system.

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Climate Change
Gender Division of Labour
Gendered impacts of climate change and CC
Interventions
Adaptation and Mitigation practices
Climate Change Interventions

• We therefore need to assess how climate change
  interventions approach the gender division of
  labour. Do they
• Make assumptions about it? (essentialisms and
  stereotypes?)
• Use a women/ men binary generalization? (ignoring
  intersectionality)
• Exploit it? (instrumentalizing women?)
• Attempt to transform gender relations to make
  them more just?

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• Cancun Agreement E. Economic and social
  consequences of response measures
• responses to climate change should be
  coordinated with social and
• economic development in an integrated manner,
  with a view to avoiding adverse impacts on the
  latter, taking fully into account the legitimate
  priority needs of developing country Parties for
  the achievement of sustained economic growth and
  the eradication of poverty, and the consequences
  for vulnerable groups, in particular women and
  children.

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Climate change interventions and gender justice

• There is a need for the gender analysis of
  climate change interventions if they are to be
  socially just. This means asking How do climate
  change interventions affect the gender division
  of labour? Are the costs, and benefits,
  distributed in ways which are socially just?
• Do climate change interventions rely on unpaid,
  caring or community work? (if so, whose unpaid
  labour? - gender, age, class?)
• Where climate change interventions create
  livelihood opportunities, who has access to
  these? Where interventions affect livelihoods
  negatively, who is affected?
• Who gets legal and/ or de facto access to
  resources delivered as part of climate change
  interventions? (eg green climate funds, common
  property regimes?). How can the intra-household
  allocation of resources be influenced?
• Who has a voice/ representation in the governance
  of climate change interventions? Which women/ men
  are excluded? (How) can climate change governance
  contribute to gender equality in governance more
  generally?

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Gender in the UNFCCC

• 1992 Rio Earth Summit
• Agenda 21
• Women have a vital role in environmental
  management and development. Their full
  participation is therefore essential to achieve
  sustainable development.
• Three Conventions
• United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity
  (UNCBD)
• United Nations Convention on Combating
  Desertification (UNCCD)
• United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
  Change (UNFCCC)

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Gender in the UNFCCC- Beginnings

• The UNFCCC was the only convention of the three
  sustainable development conventions that did not
  have women or gender language in its text
• In 2001, at COP 7 in Marrakesh, the first
  decision was adopted at the UNFCCC recognizing
  gender equality, particularly womens
  participation as needed to achieve progress on
  mitigating and adapting to climate change at all
  levels Gender equality was also introduced as
  NAPA guidelines

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Gender in the UNFCCC- Beginnings

• Women and gender activists and civil society
  organizations participating informally in the
  UNFCCC negotiations for several years including
  LIFE E.V., GenderCC and others
• Gender equality is challenging to introduce into
  the technical negotiations

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Gender in the UNFCCC- 2007

• Bali- 13th COP - Opportunity to change the
  conversation and bring social issues into the
  technical space of the UNFCCC
• Global Gender and Climate Alliance (GGCA),
  founded by WEDO, IUCN, UNDP and UNEP, formed with
  aim to have a new agreement on climate change be
  gender-responsive
• Now over 80 intergovernmental and
  non-governmental organizations are a part of this
  alliance all in favor of gender-responsive
  climate change policies, programs and practices

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Gender in the UNFCCC- 2007 to 2010

• Outreach to 100 Parties
• WEDO partnered with ENERGIA to coordinate
  advocacy team
• WEDO and ENERGIA joined forces with GenderCC,
  WECF, LIFE e.v. to establish provisional Women
  and Gender Constituency
• More than 25 position papers

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Gender in the UNFCCC- 2010 to NOW

• Cancun Agreements secured eight references to
  women and gender across all major sections
• Further references secured in decisions and
  subsidiary bodies in 2011
• 2012, COP18 Gender Decision

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Current activities Gender in the UNFCCC

• Adaptationshould be guided by gender-sensitive
  tools and approaches (in National Adaptation
  Plans)
• MitigationReducing Emissions from Deforestation
  and Forest Degradation (REDD) activities should
  include gender considerations in safeguards
  implementation of response measures to climate
  change must give full consideration of the
  positive and negative impacts on vulnerable
  groups, including women

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Current activities Gender in the UNFCCC

• Technologypreparation of technology projects and
  strategies for implementation to take into
  account gender considerations to support action
  on mitigation and adaptation and enhance
  low-emission and climate-resilient development
• FinanceGreen Climate Fund is taking a
  gender-sensitive approach in its objectives and
  guiding principles, with consideration to gender
  balance in its selection of board members,
  secretariat and stakeholder participation and
  addressing gender aspects in its operational
  modalities Adaptation Fund Board revised
  operational policies and guidelines to encourage
  gender considerations in proposals

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Current activities Gender in the UNFCCC

• Capacity Buildingcapacity building activities
  take into account gender aspects. Work Programme
  of Article 6 to the Convention on Education,
  Training and OutreachGender is a cross-cutting
  issue and principles should be guided by a gender
  approach womens participation is key in several
  elements of the work programme
• Approaches to Loss Damage associated with
  climate change impactsenhanced understanding of
  loss and damage impacts on populations already
  rendered vulnerable, including women collection
  of gender-disaggregated data to asses risk of
  loss damage

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Gender in the UNFCCC

• From women as passive victims of climate change
  to agents of change
• From gender as an issue of womens participation
  to gender as a lens of analysis
• Evidenced by mainstreaming of gender equality
  issues throughout all of the major thematic areas

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Action Points ?

• New Climate Change Agreement in 2015 Push for
  human rights and gender equality focus
• Policies over the past years have shown that
  climate change has a human face and responses to
  climate change must account for differential
  needs linked to age, ethnicity, race, sex,
  geography
• A 2015 climate change agreement will have most
  impact if it is human rights based and gender
  responsive.
• Translation of existing policies into practice
• Many climate change policies are currently
  gender-sensitive, but need to be implemented in
  practice. This implies
• More specific policy language.
• Development and application of toolkits,
  knowledge products, checklists, and procedures to
  implement policy commitments.
• Adequate resourcing (budgets and staffing) for
  policy commitments on gender.
• Monitoring and reporting on progress on policy
  commitments on gender equality. Defining
  indicators for progress.

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Action Points ?

• Policy Language
• Cancun C (Capacity Building) para 130
• Decides that capacity-building support to
  developing country Parties should be enhanced
  with a view to strengthening endogenous
  capacities at the subnational, national or
  regional levels, as appropriate, taking into
  account gender aspects, to contribute to the
  achievement of the full, effective and sustained
  implementation of the Convention
• What does this mean?

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By the Numbers

• 2008-2012 Desk Research on womens participation
  in the UNFCCC to understand gaps in
  implementation of decisions.

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By the Numbers
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By the Numbers
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By the Numbers
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By the Numbers
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By the Numbers

• Gender imbalances vary across regions
• Lower portion of women in higher levels of
  decision-making
• Capacity building and innovating strategies are
  necessary to implement words on paper to
  strengthen womens participation particularly in
  the areas of finance and technology

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Beyond the Numbers

• Beyond womens participation, gender has been
  recognized as a lens of analysis, and decisions
  have included gender sensitive tools and
  indicators,gender considerations in
  implementation and gender expertise as a
  precondition for socially just, equitable and
  effective climate policy.
• This requires gender analysis tools for climate
  change actions.

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Resources on Gender and Climate Change

• Six part resource kit giving an overview of
  gender and climate change connections
• Looks at policy, case studies, adaptation
  analysis, finance and advocacy tips
• In partnership with the UNFPA, the toolkit also
  explores connections between population dynamics
  and climate change, highlighting the impacts of
  climate change on migration and access to health
  services, particularly reproductive health
  services
• http//www.wedo.org/themes/sustainable-development
  -themes/climatechange/climate-change-connections

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Gender and Climate Fund Governance

• Governing climate funds publication produced
  prior to governing document of GCF adopted
• Explains processes of gender mainstreaming
  governance in other global financing mechanisms
• Evidences the type of needed measures to be in
  place in governance structures of funds to make
  them gender-sensitive in their operationalization
• http//www.wedo.org/library/new-publication-govern
  ing-climate-funds-what-will-work-for-women

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Gender and REDDSES

• REDD safeguards exercise-gender road maps
  (Tanzania, Uganda, Ghana, Cameroon)
• Gender mainstreaming REDD Social and
  Environmental Standards.
• The 2 booklet series includes lessons learned
  from action research in 4 countries and a toolkit
  that has a checklist for countries to develop
  gender-responsive REDD safeguards
• http//www.wedo.org/library/wedo-launches-from-res
  earch-to-action-leaf-by-leaf-getting-gender-right-
  in-redd-ses

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Thanks
Womens Environment Development
Organization 355 Lexington Avenue, 3rd Floor New
York, NY 10017 T 212-973-0325 F
212-973-0335 www.wedo.org
Development Planning Unit University College
London 34 Tavistock Sq London WC1H9EZ http//www.b
artlett.ucl.ac.uk/dpu
facebook.com/WEDOworldwide _at_WEDO_worldwide