Women And The Climate Crisis: How Much Promise Does COP26 Hold?

This week is the 26^th United Nations Climate Change Conference, known as the Conference of Parties (COP26) where nations attempt to reach a global agreement to reduce carbon emissions. Despite the goal of limiting warming to 1.5 °C, the UN currently estimates a catastrophic rise to 2.7°C by the end of the century, unless annual greenhouse gas emissions over the next eight years are halved.

Figure 1: COP26 logo.

Source: UK Cop26 (2021).

Women are arguably the first and worst to be impacted by climate change.  Firstly, due to how women are more dependent on natural resources that are threatened by global warming than men.  Consider water: in Botswana, decreased water security, owing to the amplification of climate extremes, predominantly drought, has disproportionally impacted women, because they are most responsible for providing water at a household level. With regards to food, these prolonged dry seasons have reduced rain-fed agricultural yields for farmers, a position notably assumed by women.

Secondly, women are more likely to live in poverty than men, indicating a reduced capacity to adapt  ‘droughts, floods, poverty, food insecurity and health illnesses’ intensified by global warming. In Eastern Botswana, rural communities dominated by women lack the funds to mitigate against drought, meaning recovery is slow.

Although reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recognise these vulnerabilities, their policies, demanding a consensus from all countries involved, tend to be watered down. Despite claiming to enhance adaptive capacity, effective linkages to gender are negligible. 

To address this, more women need to be included in decision-making processes. While my previous post explored this locally in South Africa, this is equally pertinent at an international level.

Consider COP26: in 2020, the She Changes Climate campaign sent an open letter to the UK Government, signed by over 400 female climate leaders, calling for accountability on gender representation at COP 26. This is important, because the UK is the host country of the convention and was predicted to assume a dominant role. At that time, however, the UK’s organising team consisted only of men. Now, around 45% of the COP26 unit are female, yet senior managerial positions remain occupied by men. This is disadvantageous due to the lack of feminist analysis , of which, can encourage systematic social change by addressing the root issues of patriarchy concerning sexual discrimination and social justice.

Figure 2: Female decision makers: Osprey Orielle Lake, Casey Camp Horinek and Neema Namadamu at Cop21 negotiations in Paris.

Source: The Guardian (2021).

Therefore, COP26 does not seem to hold much promise for women and the climate crisis. Although progress is occurring, through increasing awareness, education and gendered representation, it is not yet at the degree where it needs to be: including women at all decision-making levels. Only when female knowledge and experiences are thickly weaved within climate policies, will I expect the gendered impacts of global warming in Botswana to change.