Climate Change Act

THE GENIUS OF THE WOMEN AND CLIMATE CHANGE ACT

Climate change, the defining problem of our time, will devastate communities around the world and those among us with the least will suffer most. In particular, women, the majority of the world’s poor and proportionally more dependent on threatened natural resources, are most at risk.

Extreme weather exacerbates gender inequality. Cultural norms often leave women barred from decisions about preventing, mitigating, and coping with climate change, including leaving their homes. Caring for children or the elderly can make it harder to leave until it is too late. And women who are eventually uprooted face a greater risk of violence and trafficking. Already, 80% of those displaced by climate change around the globe are women, and women and children are 14x more likely to die from extreme weather impacts than men.

How these grim statistics will rise as extreme weather worsens is unconscionable. It is also, at this time, close to impossible to project; despite the rise in sophisticated tools to measure and predict climate impacts to business, markets, and communities for years to come, none yet have their sights trained on impacts by gender. But perhaps they should.

A nascent but growing body of research is suggesting that investing in women and girls results in a reduction of carbon emissions. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) data, educating girls could result in a massive reduction in emissions of 51.48 gigatons by 2050. This is because this work has an impact beyond the individual, cascading into a girl’s family and community.

Women and girls do most of the subsistence farming in poor countries and are the primary providers of food, water, and fuel. Thus it stands to reason that they are on the frontlines when it comes to combating climate change. Organizations like Solar Sister, supporting African women in creating solar micro-businesses, show that given the opportunity to do so, women lead on clean energy, clean cookstoves, fuel efficiency, and more, greatly reducing the carbon footprint of their communities.

In the book “All We Can Save,” authors Anya Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine Wilkonson write:

“When you’re close to the problem, you’re necessarily close to the solutions. All around the world, women, and girls are making enormous contributions to climate action: conducting research, cultivating solutions, creating campaign strategy, curating art exhibitions, crafting policy, composing literary works, charging forth in collective action, and more.”

Women are not just victims of climate change, they are one of the most important—yet overlooked—solutions. This is why the Women and Climate Change Act of 2021, introduced by Congresswoman Barbara Lee (CA-13), is a stroke of genius. The bill would establish the Federal Interagency Working Group on Women and Climate Change within the Department of State with the goal of combating the effects of climate change on women.

Beyond the benefits to women and the environment, there is another reason why this legislation is so important: national security.

Research shows that women’s advancement is critical to global stability and to reducing political violence. Countries where women are empowered are vastly more secure; elevating women counters violent extremism in myriad ways, cultivating a virtuous cycle of benefits for children, families, and communities.

Yet, as the climate worsens, so will violence and suffering. Studies link climate change to forced migration, political instability, violence, and war. In coming years, life around the globe will get harder, and as it does, among other things the world risks backsliding from the strides it has made on women’s rights and girls’ education. This, in turn, may trigger a downward spiral toward more mayhem.

Perusing the UN’s “17 Sustainable Development Goals”—including tackling poverty, hunger, bettering health, education, gender equality, access to clean water, and promoting peace and prosperity—it is clear that the conduit to much of this work is women. Women are a key to the reduction of carbon emissions, and a cornerstone of securing stability around the world.

For these reasons, Women in Climate Tech urges Congress to send The Women and Climate Change Act to the floor for a vote. As Earth Day 2021 approaches, supporting this focus on women could be among the most important moves we make in our quest to mitigate the worst that is to come and to facilitate the world’s transition to a lower-carbon economy.

• Authored by Helen Bertelli on behalf of Women in Climate Tech. WiCT’s goal is to empower and amplify the voices of women, and non-binary individuals working to solve the biggest challenge of our time.