ABC - Erin Stewart
Women care more about addressing climate change than men, doubtless because they suffer more from its effects, writes Erin Stewart. So why are the Coalition and Labor not prioritising it in their election campaigns?
In his capacity as the former minister for women, Tony Abbott claimed the best thing he did was repeal the carbon tax.
"As
many of us know," he said in December 2014, "women are particularly
focused on the household budget, and the repeal of the carbon tax means a
$550-a-year benefit for the average family".
Aside from
overstating his figures,
Mr Abbott expressed the absurdly inaccurate view that women were more
interested in domestic arithmetic than the world around them. In
actuality, women care a great deal about climate change, and are more
likely to suffer as a result of it.
Eighty-two per cent of female
respondents to the ABC's Vote Compass felt the Federal Government
should do "much" or "somewhat more" to tackle climate change, compared
with just 67 per cent of men.
These findings are in line with data from the Pew Research Centre which found
83 per cent of Australian women see climate change as a serious problem, compared with just 71 per cent of men.
Part
of the reason for the climate gap is doubtless because women would be
disproportionately affected if climate change was not effectively
addressed. Chair of Population Health at Western Sydney University
Professor Hilary Bambrick said extreme weather events killed more women
than men globally because they were less likely to have the resources to
survive.
They were also more likely to experience poverty and
social restrictions, were less likely to be part of decision-making
processes, and were also more likely to be exposed to mosquito-borne
diseases in performing household tasks such as collecting water and
harvesting food.
The reasons climate change was especially bad for women, Professor Bambrick wrote recently at
the Conversation, was "largely because they are overrepresented among the world's poor and are thus more exposed to these dangers".
Australian women 'financially vulnerable' to climate change
The
threats are seen in Australia, too. Greens Senator Larissa Waters said
she believed women were particularly financially vulnerable to climate
change due to structural disadvantage and discrimination.
"With
lesser financial means, it will be harder for women to recover from
damage to their homes from extreme weather events driven by global
warming, such as flooding, droughts or bushfires," Senator Waters told
ABC News.
"Tragically, the incidence of family violence
can increase in the wake of traumatic events such as serious natural
disasters. For example, in the wake of the Black Saturday bushfires in
Victoria."
According to the World Health Organization's
Gender and Climate Change report, women were also more likely to pick up caring responsibilities in times of disaster and extreme weather events.
These
duties created additional disadvantages in earning an income or gaining
education. While the risks were heightened for women in developing
countries, they were still shared across the world.
Research from
Charles Sturt University that looked at the gendered effects of drought
in rural Australia showed women tended to ignore their own health in
order to look after their family and community in the wake of
environmental strain.
"Women often bear the burden of having to
rebuild communities after losing community resources, skills, and
relationships from families and services that have left,"
it said.
Men suffer the effects of climate change, too
However, the effects of climate change are not solely experienced by women.
For
instance, the Charles Sturt University research showed drought has a
devastating impact on men too, who have an increased risk of
experiencing isolation and loneliness, as well as suicide. Being
confronted with a potential loss of livelihood, and feeling unable to
reach out for help because of crushing gender roles, contributes to
these risks — which must be taken very seriously.
With a July 2
election fast approaching, the Coalition and Labor have outlined
significantly different climate policies, but neither has been
campaigning hard on the issue.
Which seems odd, particularly given new reports which show
93 per cent of the Great Barrier Reef has been threatened by coral bleaching, caused (at least in part) by rising sea temperatures.
The Coalition has just announced a
$1 billion plan
to address the issue by providing concessional loans for clean energy
projects that will improve water quality, but Queensland Government
modelling suggested
$16 billion would be required to meet water quality targets.
Moreover,
as Opposition Leader Bill Shorten argued on Q&A on Monday, it makes
little sense to talk about saving the reef without talking about
climate change. "They are inextricably linked," Mr Shorten said. "It is a
joke that on one hand my opponent is out there on the reef — that's
good — pledging money — that's good — but if you've got climate change
policies which do nothing about climate change, it's just a
billion-dollar Band-Aid of neglect."
Majority of voters want greater government action on climate change
It
is odder still given the results of a May ReachTEL poll, which found 56
per cent of voters think the Government should do more to address
climate change and 64 per cent would be more likely to vote for a party
that planned to completely convert Australia to renewable energy within
20 years.
(Although Pew found 71 per cent of Australian women
thought people must make lifestyle changes in order to reduce the
effects of climate change, while only 57 per cent of men agreed.)
Experts say action on water quality is needed now.
And yet Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull
has done little more to prioritise climate change than his predecessor,
aside from signing the Paris Agreement promising to reduce emissions by
26-28 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030. He also
has not reversed Mr Abbott's decimation of climate change research and development.
Meanwhile
Labor is proposing two emissions trading schemes to charge big
polluters for their environmental damages — one for the electricity
industry and another for other polluting industries — which are to fund
the bigger target of a 45 per cent reduction of emissions by 2030.
Climate
Councillor Lesley Hughes, a Distinguished Professor of Biology and Pro
Vice-Chancellor at Macquarie University, said the pledges that have been
made were insufficient — they would not keep climate warming below 1.5
degrees Celsius.
Men leave a bigger carbon footprint than women
But while the effects of climate change are gendered, so too are its causes and potential solutions.
Dr
Ariel Salleh, a Research Associate in Political Economy at the
University of Sydney, pointed to evidence from around the world showing
women did not leave
as large an ecological footprint as men, because of differences in their consumption patterns.
A
study from the Swedish Defence Research Agency showed that in some
regions — they looked at Germany and Norway — differences in consumption
rates were not as pronounced, but even so, men consumed more energy (
8 per cent and 6 per cent respectively).
They
found significantly larger differences in the two other countries they
studied, Greece and Sweden (39 per cent and 22 per cent respectively).
The men's bigger carbon footprint was due to their greater tendency to
travel by car, go out for meals, and consume alcohol and tobacco
products.
In terms of climate solutions, Dr Salleh said men were more likely to prefer "
end-of-pipe" answers, that is, where problems were addressed by radical technological responses that may be risky.
Women,
however, tended to take on the personal responsibility of making
everyday changes, diverting the need to take unnecessary risks and
incorporating care for the environment as routine.
"The way
society is structured, women are given the labour to do with reproducing
the next generation," as well as sustaining their families and
communities, Dr Salleh told ABC News.
"It's a logical corollary that they will focus on issues like climate change."
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