Climate change disproportionately affects women. Policies aimed at addressing the impacts of climate change must take this into account.
Women rely more on seasonal work in climate vulnerable sectors like tourism. They make up a majority of subsistence farmers, and tend to be responsible for household water and firewood collection. Women are also affected by specific physical vulnerabilities to vector-borne diseases like Zika spreading due to rising temperatures. Women headed households which are over-represented among poor households in the Caribbean are particularly vulnerable to the disaster related impacts of climate change..
These tools can be used to integrate gender considerations when developing legislation, policies and programmes in response to the impacts of climate change. They can help ensure that the specific needs of women and men are adequately addressed.
Climate change has pronounced effects on Caribbean environments and economies.
It is critical that legislators engage women (including from poor households) in the design and review of adaptation policies, establish sex-disaggregated baselines and targets to measure the impacts of legislation, and allocate dedicated funds through gender-sensitive budgeting.
The following practices have been submitted by parliamentarians and related stakeholders, and describe techniques that can be applied to:
Policy making on climate change that is gender responsive.
As part of the Paris Agreement adopted at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 21), signatory states committed to “respect, promote and consider gender equality and empowerment of women… when taking action to combat climate change” – with an emphasis on increasing awareness and support for the development and implementation of gender-responsive climate adaptation policies at regional and national levels. Progress towards this goal will be reviewed in 2016 at COP 22 in Marrakech, and can also be monitored on the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) website.
Flash Quiz Time! Revisit key aspects of this toolkit with a short, self-guided quiz. These multiple-choice questions are intended for personal knowledge review and responses are anonymous. Go ahead and challenge yourself.
