07/03/2022

(SMH) International Women’s Day Highlights Climate Justice As A Feminist Issue

Sydney Morning Herald - Caitlin Fitzsimmons

Women are on the front lines of the global climate crisis, making up 80 per cent of the 21.5 million people displaced every year by climate-related events.

That’s according to the United Nations, which predicts at least 1.2 billion people could be displaced by climate events every year by 2050.

Kavita Naidu, an international human rights lawyer and activist from Fiji, specialising in climate justice. Credit: James Brickwood

Women and children are 14 times more likely to die or be injured from a natural disaster, and climate disasters have been shown to increase gender-based violence including sexual harassment and violence, domestic violence, child marriage, sexual exploitation of children and human trafficking.

Women are often also at the forefront of climate action: becoming environmental defenders, sustainability educators, and helping communities become more resilient to climate change.

International Women’s Day is on Tuesday and the theme is “Gender Equality Today for a Sustainable Tomorrow” with the hashtag #changingclimates.

While some organisations are using #BreaktheBias instead, this is not the official theme but one promoted by a management consultancy, which owns the internationalwomensday.com site and has no connection with the United Nations.

Gillian Triggs, the UNHCR’s Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, said climate change was already displacing large numbers of people across the world.

In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, more frequent and severe cyclones and hurricanes have led to mudslides and the destruction of houses, while loss of grasslands meant that people who herded cattle were moving into more traditional agricultural areas and coming into conflict.

“Unfortunately, women and children are particularly vulnerable in these circumstances and suffer disproportionately,” Dr Triggs told The Sun-Herald and The Sunday Age. “They are enormously vulnerable on the move when they’re displaced – vulnerable to sexual abuse and exploitation of various kinds.”

Dr Triggs, who will be speaking at an online International Women’s Day event run by the UNHCR this week, said the inequality of women – especially in poor countries – meant they had fewer financial resources and were usually unable to get paid work, making it hard to obtain accommodation when they were displaced.

Women in countries with a large amount of climate displacement often worked in agriculture but were unable to use those skills once displaced.

Dr Triggs said improving gender equality would make communities more resilient to climate change, and that women were also often at the forefront of efforts to prevent or adapt to it.

UNHCR’s Assistant High Commissioner for Protection Gillian Triggs (right) holds a focus group discussion with women at the Nanjua B internally displaced persons relocation site in northern Mozambique. Credit: UNHCR/Martim Gray Pereira

When she was in Niger for the UN Refugee Agency, she saw a woman who was a refugee from Mali and also an engineer directing operations for women to construct bricks from cement, sand and water. These can be used to construct small rectangular houses that keep the heat out.

“We do see these really heartening situations in which refugees are helping themselves but where women are very much at the forefront of these efforts to create an environment of self-reliance where they can protect themselves and their families. We see this everywhere,” Dr Triggs said.

Kavita Naidu, an international human rights lawyer and activist from Fiji specialising in climate justice, said climate justice is a feminist issue because the impacts of climate change are not gender neutral.

Speaking at the UN Women’s International Women’s Day event last Friday, she described her work with grassroots women and girls in Asia and the Pacific who have experienced exploitation and violence and some of the worst impacts of climate change.

Ms Naidu said these same women and girls were standing up against their governments, militaries and corporations, to fight for justice and their right to a healthy environment.

“I have never met more powerful and resilient women in my life, who, despite facing these relentless atrocities, have mobilised together to fight for their equality and the right to live in a safe and healthy environment.”

Ms Naidu said she was excited by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report last week because it emphasised that social justice and equity are critical to urgent climate action.

Renowned naturalist Jane Goodall, who was interviewed by Melbourne academic and climate activist Linh Do in a prerecorded video for the UN Women event, said the media needed to show more stories of hope and highlight that scientific solutions to climate change already exist.

Dr Goodall said the outlook would be hopeless if we carry on with business as usual but that this was not inevitable – reaching people with stories that touch the heart was more effective than only appealing to reason or getting angry.

“A lot of emphasis needs to be put on the fact that we actually scientifically have so many solutions to so much of what’s going wrong,” Dr Goodall said.

“The problem here that we face is the big corporations who haven’t changed their mindset and who feel that everything must be to do with the bottom line, who act as though they believe the natural resources of the planet are infinite. They’re not, they’re finite, but the good news is the number of big corporations that are changing.”

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