Climate change exacerbates gender inequalities, increasing the gap in opportunities and rights between men and women. Women and men have different needs, roles and skills in managing climate change. Women are the most affected by climate change, and the discrimination they still face at the socioeconomic level intensifies the consequences that global warming is having on their food, homes and livelihoods.

The most notorious case is that of Honduran indigenous leader and environmentalist Berta Cáceres, murdered in early March 2016 for her opposition to the construction of the Agua Zarca dam, which threatened the lives of the Lenca indigenous people to which she belonged. Berta, now turned into a symbol, used to say that a word is worth more than a bullet. This beautiful phrase will only be true if we honor and keep her words so that the bullets that killed her are not worth more than her struggle for a land for all. A land where, for example, there are not thousands of people whose homes are threatened by rising water levels or whose crops die because of rising temperatures and scarce rainfall.

Without title or position, indigenous women in Latin America are also leading the war for the environment. Every day they work anonymously to prevent the plundering of the land by large companies that want to profit from natural resources.

In my experience working with rural communities in Peru, women play a fundamental role in projects and policies. By involving them in adaptation and mitigation projects, the results are better in the long term and, moreover, they benefit other social issues, such as health and education.

It is important to support and encourage the creation of educational opportunities and to encourage more women to work in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) sector. We can encourage more women to study these subjects through scholarships and with the support of mentors. We need women to have the opportunity to find innovative and sustainable ways to mitigate and support the adaptation process we need to address the effects of climate change.

It is our duty as citizens to follow up on the commitments and policies that our countries adopt regarding gender and climate change.