Panel theme:
Our Human Environment
Paper Title:
Greenhouse Inequality: Women, Climate Change and Human
Rights
Author:
Andrew Sanger
If global warming is our poison, then human rights can be our antidote. The problems of
climate change exemplify the great inequities of the world: imbalances in power and wealth
and divides between rich and poor with differential impacts and responsibilities. Gender, like
poverty, transcends these challenges: both are interrelated and frustrate social change by
mutually reinforcing traditional social norms. In the same way that climate change has a
differential effect on the rich and poor, it provides different challenges for both men and
women. For women in poorer communities, their suffering is invisible and their selfdevelopment paralysed. The focus of human rights as a visual project, able to represent the
vulnerable and marginalised makes it an apt antidote to this unequal playing field.
This paper will demonstrate the gender-related vulnerability of women to climate change by
focusing on three areas: (1) existing social roles and norms; (2) the effect of environmental
disasters on women; and (3) the under representation of women in climate change decision
making. These issues raise two inter-related concerns: the well-being of women and the free
agency of women. A human rights approach – with its two-dimensional field of vision:
identifying cruelty and indignity as morally wrong and a commitment to human flourishing
(“agency”) – illuminates the problem and enables the solution. In addition, with its emphasis
on enabling the vulnerable, human rights can empower women to use their unique knowledge
to better equip communities with mitigation and adaptation methods for combating climate
change.
1 | Existing social roles and norms
Women are affected differently and more severely by climate change because of existing social
roles and norms, marginalisation and poverty (70% of the world's poor are women). In many
poorer communities, women – often including young girls – bear an asymmetric responsibility
for food production in their household. When wells dry up and crops yields diminish, women
have to travel further to find food and water. In many developing countries, women work 12
hours or more a day, and the World Health Organisation estimates that one third of a
Sudanese woman's daily caloric intake is expended on transporting water and fuel. 1 The initial
consequence is an adverse effect on the well-being of women, but there is also an important
agency problem at work. Traditional roles are reinforced by the increased work-load and
pressure to find food and water: education suffers, personal development is stifled and there
are adverse effects on family life. Mothers are working harder and longer with young girls
often expected to help. In the Himalayan region of Nepal, environmental degradation
compounded stress within households and put pressure on young girls to do more work at an
earlier age. This was shown as programmes enabling girls to attend school began failing as the
environmental and social conditions of families deteriorated. Education is paramount in
addressing the limitations of the free agency of women.
2 | The effect of environmental disasters on women
Although it cannot directly be shown that certain environmental disasters have been directly
caused by climate change, such hazards help demonstrate the likely future effect of climate
change. In particular, natural hazards exacerbate the pre-existing social roles, structures and
norms discussed above. In the 2005 Asia Tsunami the majority of those killed, and those least
able to recover, were women. As a result of so many mothers dying, there has been an
increase in infant mortality, neglect of girls, early marriage of girls for a dowery, sexual
assault, trafficking and prostitution. These are direct violations of fundamental human rights;
notably rights to life, security of the person and freedom from inhumane or degrading
1
Anushay Hossain Environmental degradation and women New World (Oct-Dec 2006) p. 26
Author: Andrew Sanger
University: BPP Law School
Programme: Bar Vocational Course
treatment. Furthermore, a study concluded that more women die as a result of natural
disasters in countries with very low social and economic rights for women; by contrast, where
women had almost equal rights as men, natural disasters killed men and women equally.2
3 | The under representation of women in climate change decision making
The principal representatives at all levels of climate-change decision making are male.3 Women
are severely under-represented despite their indigenous and intimate knowledge of an
environment in which they – every day – have to find food and water. There are four issues
here: (1) women are being unfairly excluded from decision making due to existing bias
towards men as “decision-makers”;4 (2) since climate change is not gender-neutral (as
demonstrated above), women must be free to represent female-specific consequences of
climate change; to treat everyone without distinction is to ignore the effects on women in
poorer countries. Thirdly (3), both men and women should be in partnership over the
solutions to climate change because they are both stakeholders in the problem (helping to
avoid mitigation policies at the expense of the development of women). Finally (4), women
have personal experience and knowledge of their environment; this could be used to help bring
about successful adaptation strategies.
For the representation of women in climate change decision making to improve, a combined
approach in addressing the well-being and free agency of women is essential: perhaps the
reason why so few women are able to represent their concerns in the international arena is
because they are battling against existing norms and natural hazards undermining their rights
to life, security of the person, shelter and education.
Human Rights as the Antidote
There is an important dual connection between the environment – in particular climate change
– and human rights: first, a stable environment is sine qua non for various human rights (e.g.
right to health, security of the person etc.); secondly, damaging the environment affects the
ability of individuals to enjoy their human rights. Taking a human rights based approach to the
problem of climate change can enable us to address both the well-being and free agency of
impoverish women but it will require better implementation of human rights norms. The
problem now is that the realisation of such norms is made difficult – and requires resolution oftwo fundamental issues: (1) a lack of available resources; and (2) difficulty in changing
cultural norms and activities.
2
3
4
Neumayer and Plümper The Gendered Nature of Natural Disasters: The Impact of Catastrophic Events on the
Gender Gap in Life Expectancy, 1981-2002 (published 2007) p. 1 et seq.
Emily Boyd The Noel Kempff project in Bolivia: gender, power, and decision making in climate mitigation Gender &
Development, vol. 10, issue 2 (July 2002), p.70
Ibid.
Author: Andrew Sanger
University: BPP Law School
Programme: Bar Vocational Course