How might an agreement have affected women?

As the Copenhagen summit drew to a disgustingly non-commital, pathetic conclusion, Climate Action Network International called a press conference to air their extreme discontent. Amidst a sea of dour, resigned faces, South African activist Kumi Naidoo’s spitting fury cut right to the bone of the reason for the lack of action: the barely concealed contempt and indifference of Western leaders for those who are truly suffering the impact of climate change.

“Why is there such lack of urgency” he asked, desperately.  “If the impact was happening in Manhattan, Berlin, Paris, would the urgency be what it is?  We have to ask bluntly, is it because the people on the front line of the struggle are poor? Is it because they are not militarily strong? Is it because they don’t have any resources like oil underneath them? Or is it because of the colour of their skin?”

The answer to all of Naidoo’s questions, is, sadly, yes. Yet, perhaps in his anger, he omitted to mention another reason for Western world’s indifference and inaction: that the people on the front line of the struggle are almost uniformly women. A 2003 report estimated that 85% of people who die from climate-induced disasters are women. Why such a disproportionate figure? Because women, thanks to the patriarchal politics and ingrained misogyny of most societies, are much more likely to be poor and poverty stricken than men. According to an 2002 Oxfam publication, 70% of the world’s poor are women. And it is the poor who are most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

In developed nations, they are less able to afford food when food prices rise thanks to crop failures and droughts. They are less able to be able to heat and sanitise their homes when energy costs rise due to dwindling fossil fuels. In developing countries they are more likely to live in areas which feel the effects of global warming: they live on flood plains and in deserts, they live on farmland destroyed by rising temperatures and next to glaciers threatening to flood valleys.

There is no doubt that the worldwide poor are suffering as a whole. But the female percentage of that oppressed group is suffering much more. Poor women are much more likely to have to provide for children than poor men, and hence their food and energy costs are sometimes tripled. In developing nations, women are hugely dependant on threatened natural resources. Third world women carry out the majority of agricultural activities – 75% in sub-Saharan Africa and 65% in Asia according to the UN. Yet droughts, floods and natural disasters are set to cripple the world’s crops. A UN panel has estimated that agriculture in Africa could be reduced by as much as 50% by 2020. As the food supply shortens, the already backbreaking workload of third world women will increase as they struggle to grow enough food to sell and to cook for their families. And in times of drought, it is they who will have to walk the extra miles to fetch the family’s water, across parched desert and once fertile farmland.

Flooding is an inevitable effect of global warming

And they will probably do this whilst sick. Climate change is predicted to change the geographic range of a number of diseases, bringing them to areas whose populations have no evolved immunity. In an already tired and worn down body, it takes barely any time for a disease to take hold.  Pregnant women are particularly susceptible to malaria, and the mosquitoes which carry that life threatening disease are expected to thrive thanks to increased temperature and flooding.

Couple an increased workload with poor health and you don’t only get a heartbreaking picture, you get an infuriating Catch 22. For sick and overworked women are hardly likely to be able to educate themselves or take positions of power within society – or to be able to encourage their daughters to do so. And this is the reason why women are suffering in the first place. It’s hard to imagine that climate change would be affecting women so disproportionately if those affected had a voice within the international community.

Sexism aside, it’s unreasonable to expect a white man from England to know what policies will impact upon the lives of a young Asian farm girl or indeed, perhaps upon the lives of young English women. Women need to be on an equal footing within governments and within the international community. We are genuinely concerned about the environment and the impact of global warming. The Women’s Manifesto on Climate Change suggests that far more European women than men are concerned about climate change – 84% of us compared to 64% of men. In developing countries, Actionaid found increasingly inventive adaptation by women to their new environments – workers have begun to promote alternative energy such as solar power, and to share the burden of intensive labour. Women have the ideas to tackle climate change, but are rarely given the chance even to be listened to. Of the 30 councillors to the Copenhagen Climate Council, only two – Li Xiaolin and Lise Kingo – were female.

If the effects of global warming are ever going to be countered and dealt with, then surely it will be done by listening to those who have to deal with those effects on a day to day basis. It’s little wonder that a deal decided almost uniformly by white, western men has effectively put an end to any hopes of keeping climate change at a reasonable level. Until third world countries – and third world women in particular – are listened to, things are only going to get worse.