Climate change impacts women the most — expert

AMMAN — Women are “disproportionately impacted” by the climate crisis, which affects their social roles, contribution to the economy, care responsibilities and most importantly their roles in environmental leadership and innovation, said Hala Murad, head of the Dibeen Association for Environmental Development.

During a virtual panel titled “Centering Care in a Feminist Intersectional Approach to Loss and Damage”, Murad discussed realities lived by women as well as gender-sensitive solutions for crises caused by climate change, giving special focus to Jordan. 

Other participants in last Thursday’s event included environmental experts and feminist advocates from Argentina, Honduras, the Philippines, South Africa and Mexico.

The event aimed to frame loss and damage in terms of economic, social and cultural rights of women and to explore the “urgent need” to rethink the world’s relationship to care, reframing it as a structural element of the response to loss and damage.

The session was organised by ESCR-Net, an international network seeking to build a global movement to make human rights and social justice a reality for all.

Murad told The Jordan Times on Saturday that women are the main caregivers and tend to work more than men to secure household livelihoods, which puts a greater burden on women and gives them less time to receive proper education and training that could help them adapt to climate change.

Water, for example, is delivered once a week in big cities like Amman and less than once every two weeks in rural areas. Women are responsible for securing water used for domestic and productive household tasks, which gives them less time to earn their own money or acquire other skills, said Murad. 

She added that, during floods, women are also the ones who suffer from displacement the most because they are the ones caring for their children.

“Climate change impacts women more than men, and women are more susceptible to being adversely impacted,” said Murad. She added that climate crisis can reverse progress made towards gender equity.

Further, Murad said that women spend between 270 and 400 minutes doing household tasks per day, while men who only spend 80 minutes on such tasks. “This subject needs the attention it deserves,” she said.

These challenges require sustainable and inclusive solutions and a meaningful gender-responsive approach, added Murad, noting that stakeholders need to create policies and programmes that help adapt to climate change while using capacity-building sessions to empower people to fight for climate solutions.

The Kingdom’s ministries and committees need to make their policies and plans more practical and simplified in order to better support people, particularly women from across Jordan’s 12 governorates.

“At first glance, people in Jordan would think that we are on the safe side, as long as we do not have hurricanes or other natural hazards,” Murad said. “But the long-term effects of climate change will be felt through gradual degradation of the environment.” 

According to the UN, “women are more vulnerable to climate change” due to social, economic and cultural factors that limit their coping capacity, highlighting the need for gender-sensitive response to the effects of climate change.

According to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, climate change is likely to become the dominant driver of biodiversity loss by the end of the century. Biodiversity plays an in important role in climate change adaptation and mitigation.