Women are more vulnerable to the impacts of global climate change

Socioeconomic and cultural factors increase the vulnerabilities of the female sex to disasters caused by extreme climate events, says Mexican researcher and IPCC member.

By Elton Alisson

Agência FAPESP – Women and girls currently represent 72% of people who live in conditions of extreme poverty worldwide. As a result of this and other socioeconomic and cultural factors, women represent the majority of victims of disasters caused by extreme climate events, such as floods or hurricanes.

These data were presented by Úrsula Oswald Spring, a Mexican doctor and anthropologist, during the workshop “Risk Management for Extreme Climate and Disasters in Central and South America: What Can We Learn from the IPCC Special Report on SREX Extremes?,” held in São Paulo this past August.

The researcher, who is a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and a member of the IPCC, explains in an interview with Agência FAPESP the reasons for and the actions necessary to reduce the vulnerability of women and girls to the impact of climate change.

Agência FAPESP – What human groups are most vulnerable to the impacts of global climate change?
Úrsula Oswald Spring – First, women and girls. Second, indigenous groups that are living in communities with different languages and cultures from their own. Third, every person who lives in cities in extreme poverty and in high-risk and high violence zones, illegal immigrants, the unemployed and those exposed to intemperate climate. Coincidentally, these three groups of humans also face the most discrimination. There is a problem of structural discrimination and a catastrophic combination of socioeconomic, environmental and cultural factors that potentiate the vulnerabilities of these three human groups to the impacts of climate change.

Agência FAPESP – What makes women and girls more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change?
Úrsula Oswald Spring – Globally, they represent 72% of people in extreme poverty, and without financial resources, it is very difficult to face the impacts of extreme climate events. Additionally, women are taught to take care of others, and, for this reason, we take on the role of “mother of all.” This process, which I call the theory of social representations, also makes [women]more vulnerable because we have the role of primarily protecting others and only later being concerned with ourselves. Behind all this, there are also thousands of years of an exclusive political system, reinforced by all religious beliefs and the patriarchal system that prescribes authority to men, resulting in significant violence, exclusion and discrimination against women. Capitalism, for its part, has taken advantage of the patriarchal system and built a vertical, exclusive, authoritarian and violent system that allows 1,200 men to control half of the planet and women to have little decision and veto power in questions that directly affect them.

Agência FAPESP – Given this reality, what is needed to reduce the vulnerability of women and children to the impacts of extreme climate events?
Úrsula Oswald Spring – We cannot destroy, for example, the capacity of women who want to be the mother of all. But we must train them so that this process of caring for others is more efficient and is not conducted at the expense of their lives, but can benefit a series of people, including a woman and her daughters. This implies more conditions for [women] to have greater decision power.

Agência FAPESP – How is this possible?
Úrsula Oswald Spring – Above all, by affording women greater access to education. According to the World Bank, every Islamic country that invests in educating its women increases its GDP by 1%. Another way is to give more visibility to women’s work, which is often not valued. In the United States, female labor represents 38% of the GDP. More visibility must be given to the economic participation of women. Furthermore, laws are needed to guarantee greater equity and participation of women in all decision processes. We would have to use quota systems for women to reverse discrimination, which would be a step toward guaranteeing equality. Unfortunately, the catastrophes and disasters caused by extreme climate events will help in the process of giving greater power to women.

Agência FAPESP – How so?
Úrsula Oswald Spring – In Mexico, for example, rural production is in the hands of men, but it is shifting to women because men migrate to the United States in search of employment. In their new role as heads of household, women are having to make decisions on a variety of questions. We need to help them in this empowerment process, affording them access to sustainable technology that allows them, for example, to protect against the risk of disasters caused by extreme climate events.

Agência FAPESP – In addition to the issue of empowerment, which is a necessarily long-term process, what urgent actions can be taken to prepare women to face extreme climate events?
Úrsula Oswald Spring – It is necessary to make it possible to train women so that in moments of imminent danger, for example, they have the right to leave their homes. Many communities prohibit a woman from leaving home if a man does not accompany her. This is discrimination and a form of control that must be overcome with gender equality laws. Furthermore, women must be taught to swim, run and climb trees, and they must be allowed to use more appropriate clothes for these activities. I watched the Olympic Games in London and the attire of women swimmers and runners from Saudi Arabia caught my attention. Although they were dressed differently from athletes from other countries, at least they wore pants that allowed them to run without infringing religious codes. This is the type of action that can be socialized. We can take advantage of the Olympic Games to promote this type of action in all Islamic countries and to offer swimming and running classes to women.

Agência FAPESP – Which of the three human groups that you named as most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change is most resilient?
Úrsula Oswald Spring – Only indigenous people have, over thousands of years, acquired the ability to manage very difficult situations without international, national or state aid, on their own. They have adapted to climate changes and for thousands of years have grown vegetables in the same manner, such as potatoes (which are resistant to drought, cold and heat), and have developed very efficient and cheap systems for land irrigation and fertilization. This traditional knowledge must be taken advantage of and linked to modern technology to adapt to climate change. But we are losing this traditional knowledge because the last generation of indigenous people that still have this knowledge are young, have gone to school, speak languages other than their mother tongue and are losing their indigenous culture. If we do nothing, globally, we will lose this traditional knowledge that allowed these people to develop local solutions to face climate change.

Agência FAPESP – What existing initiatives seek to promote connections between traditional knowledge and scientific knowledge?
Úrsula Oswald Spring – In Mexico, for example, the Universidad de Campesina del Sur (Rural University of the South) was created. Members include local groups comprised basically of women, compared to 20 years ago when they were made up of men. Based on the needs of these groups, we disseminate an educational process based on the methods of Paulo Freire, where they learn based on their own reality.

Agência FAPESP – What is taught at Universidad de Campesina del Sur?
Úrsula Oswald Spring – One of the topics we work with is organic agriculture, teaching women to work with family gardens to guarantee food for themselves and their families. Another theme is handling water. There is a lot of nonpotable water, such as that used to wash hands, which is very easy to treat and can be used with clean, dry, organic waste to improve soil and help to recover the natural fertility of the soil. Another theme that we are dedicated to is alternative medicine. Modern medicine is very expensive, and the majority of people do not have resources to utilize the health system. As a result, we are creating a means of integrating traditional Mexican medicine that utilizes herbs and traditional healing methods, such as vapors, with modern medicine. It is a set of actions focused on potentiating the use of scientific and traditional knowledge and attempting to seek solutions to collectively face varied problems, such as climate change. Major works don’t protect people from catastrophes caused by an extreme climate event, such as flooding; small works do, as long as they are very efficient.

Agência FAPESP – In your opinion, how will it be possible face the risks of climate change on a global scale in a moment in which several countries are experiencing grave economic crises and have urgent problems to resolve?
Úrsula Oswald Spring – There is great uncertainty regarding climate change because in addition to economic crises, the majority of people have never experienced a disaster caused by an extreme climate event. If people have not experienced a situation like this, they need to think of ways to prepare themselves to face extreme climate events, which will occur more frequently over the next few years. One of the ways of doing this is the decentralization of risk management for climate change, taking into consideration the conditions of each region. The climate problem in the Amazon, for example, is not the same as in the heights of the Andes. Management in these regions is very different. For this reason, countries need to decentralize their actions. The risk management  adopted by countries will depend on good local management. The first 10 minutes of a risk situation, such as a flood or landslide, are crucial, and there is no international aid that can help. For this reason, countries must invest heavily in prevention and training on the local level to face the risks of climate extremes.