Archive for: Climate Change


Women are engaged in more climate-related change activities than is often recognized. This article highlights women’s important role in the adaptation of and search for safer communities, which leads them to understand better the causes and consequences of changes in climatic conditions. It is concluded that women have important knowledge and skills for orienting the adaptation processes, a product of their roles in society (productive, reproductive and community). In addition, the importance of gender equity in these processes is recognized. The relationship among climate change, climate variability and the accomplishment of the Millennium Development Goals is also considered.

Year: 2008

Source: Advances in GeoSciences

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    Climate finance should flow to women’s organizations, gender-related groups, and feminist organizations working at the intersection of gender equality and climate change. Efforts toward enhanced gender-responsiveness of climate finance must include the groups, organizations, and networks best positioned to realize gender equality on the ground, contributing to more robust climate solutions and outcomes. These truths are undeniable, but we know that practice has not yet caught up to the ideal. In response, Prospera, the International Network of Women’s Funds, and WEDO have been working to identify the best engagement pathways for organizations to ensure the four primary public climate funds begin to make this a reality. This report is one piece of the ongoing work and advocacy undertaken by many colleagues and collaborators, to transform our climate finance system into one that is gender-responsive and equitable.

    Year: 2019

    Source: Women’s Environment and Development Organization | Prospera

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      Weathering Change takes us to Ethiopia, Nepal and Peru to hear the stories of women as they struggle to care for their families, while enduring crop failures and water scarcity. The film shows how women and families are already adapting to the climate change challenges that threaten their health and their livelihoods. The film is accompanied by a brief advocacy guide for viewers.

      Year: 2011

      Source: PAI [Film | Guide]

        Research on vulnerability and resilience is rooted in the common-sense observation that similar climate events can produce very different levels of socioeconomic impact, depending not only on the location and timing of occurrence, but also the resources and agility of the societies who experience climate change impacts. The degree of impact depends on the ways in which the natural triggering event interacts with particular ecosystems and with the specific characteristics of the society affected, including its level of economic development; the types of livelihoods of its members; education levels; and other factors that generally determine both how resilient the affected population is as well as what resources are available for adaptation. This paper addresses four related topics: (1) varying definitions of vulnerability and resilience (and, to a lesser extent, adaptive capacity) and the implications of those differences for societal analysis, (2) candidate approaches to characterizing societal resilience to climate change, (3) methods for assessing resilience, and (4) the potential contribution of a richer understanding of affected populations to the study of resilience.

        Year: 2009

        Source: PAI | Battelle

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          Simply put, climate change is caused by excessive production of green-house gases. As highlighted by the late Professor Tony McMichael, the “cause(s) of the causes” should not be overlooked. With climate change already close to an irreversible tipping point, urgent action is needed to reduce not only our mean (carbon) footprints but also the “number of feet”—that is, the growing population either already creating large footprints or aspiring to do so. Wise and compassionate promotion of contraceptive care and education in a rights based, culturally appropriate framework offers a cost effective strategy to reduce greenhouse gases. This article outlines the evidence for voluntary accessible family planning as a strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate climate change.

          Year: 2016

          Source: British Medical Journal

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            Climate change impacts fall disproportionately on the world’s poorest, most marginalized communities, particularly those highly dependent on direct use of natural resources, such as subsistence fishing communities. Vulnerability to climate change involves social and ecological factors, and efforts to reduce it and build long-term resilience must target both. In Madagascar national and international planning to address vulnerability remains vague and indeterminate for most of the island’s coastal communities, with little meaningful implementation. Therefore, local measures to build resilience and adaptive capacity are critical to ensure that communities are able to cope with the immediate and long-term effects of climate change. This article examines a PHE program in Madagascar, and illustrates how practical initiatives can contribute to building immediate and long-lasting resilience and adaptive capacity. These approaches could play a key role in adaptation measures within the western Indian Ocean region, where many coastal communities live in severe poverty on the front line of a rapidly changing climate.

            Year: 2013

            Source: Western Indian Ocean Journal of Marine Science

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              Female education and family planning are both critical for sustainable development, and merit expanded support without any appeal to global climate considerations. Since both activities affect fertility, population growth, and carbon emissions, they may also provide sufficient climate-related benefits to warrant additional financing from resources devoted to carbon emissions abatement. This paper considers the economic case for such support. We find that the population policy options are less costly than almost all of the options Nauclér and Enkvist (2009) provide for low-carbon energy development. They are also cost-competitive with forest conservation and other improved forestry and agricultural practices. We conclude that female education and family planning should be viewed as viable potential candidates for financial support from global climate funds. The case for female education is also strengthened by its documented contribution to resilience in the face of the climate change that has already become inevitable.

              Year: 2010

              Source: Center for Global Development

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                This 2009 flagship report argues that reproductive health care, including family planning, and gender relations could influence the future course of climate change and affect how humanity adapts to rising seas, worsening storms and severe droughts. Women, especially impoverished women in developing countries, bear the disproportionate burden of climate change, but are often largely overlooked in the debate about how to address problems of rising seas, droughts, melting glaciers and extreme weather. The report cites research demonstrating women’s higher vulnerability in natural disasters—especially where incomes are low and status differences between men and women are high. The international community’s fight against climate change is more likely to be successful if policies, programmes and treaties take into account the needs, rights and potential of women. The report shows that investments that empower women and girls—particularly education and health—bolster economic development, reduce poverty, and have a beneficial impact on climate change.

                Year: 2009

                Source: United Nations Population Fund

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                  We identify three categories of challenges that have to be addressed to maintain and enhance human health in the face of increasingly harmful environmental trends. Firstly, conceptual and empathy failures (imagination challenges), such as an over-reliance on gross domestic product as a measure of human progress, the failure to account for future health and environmental harms over present day gains, and the disproportionate effect of those harms on the poor and those in developing nations. Secondly, knowledge failures (research and information challenges), such as failure to address social and environmental drivers of ill health, a historical scarcity of transdisciplinary research and funding, together with an unwillingness or inability to deal with uncertainty within decision making frameworks. Thirdly, implementation failures (governance challenges), such as how governments and institutions delay recognition and responses to threats, especially when faced with uncertainties, pooled common resources, and time lags between action and effect.

                  Year: 2015

                  Source: The Rockefeller Foundation–Lancet Commission on Planetary Health

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                    This article suggests that sexual and reproductive health and rights activists seeking to influence the post-2015 international development paradigm must work with sustainable development advocates concerned with a range of issues, including climate change, environmental issues, and food and water security, and that a way of building bridges with these communities is to demonstrate how sexual and reproductive health and rights are relevant for these issues. An understanding of population dynamics, including urbanization and migration, as well as population growth, can help to clarify these links. This article therefore suggests that whether or not sexual and reproductive health and rights activists can overcome resistance to discussing “population”, become more knowledgeable about other sustainable development issues, and work with others in those fields to advance the global sustainable development agenda are crucial questions for the coming months. The article also contends that it is possible to care about population dynamics (including ageing and problems faced by countries with a high proportion of young people) and care about human rights at the same time. It expresses concern that, if sexual and reproductive health and rights advocates do not participate in the population dynamics discourse, the field will be left free for those for whom respecting and protecting rights may be less of a priority.

                    Year: 2014

                    Source: Reproductive Health Matters

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