March 8, is as we all know celebrated as “International Women's Day”, as the day is approaching, I thought discussing about climate change and women is a suitable topic to write about as my first ambassador report.

We are always talking about environment pollution and climate change and the implications of it on our nature and surroundings but we often miss the discussion about its effect on women. Climate change and surrounding environment not only affect women on their physical health, it also effects on their mental health, economic activities and their lifestyle. It is more noticeable in developing countries as these countries face environmental and climate change affects more. Most of the developing nations are patriarchal as a society, so society tends to decide women’s role and actions in general. As women have limited access to the resources, property, education etc, they also tend to face the adverse effects of the environment more.

For example, in Bangladesh, assuming there is a natural disaster like a cyclone is happening, a family has to quickly move to a shelter house before the cyclone hits their area. What should the women do? Most possibly the women of that household will choose to stay at their home to try tending the household as the cyclone is approaching. The lack of necessary information and awareness of cyclone safety and evacuation might be the reasons. Thus, most women tend to choose staying at home and face the risk.

If we think about climate change, women are at a more vulnerable position. The impact of it on women is stronger. As many women are the primary caretaker of households and provide food and fuel for their families, they are more vulnerable when there is a drought or flood occurring. Men tend to go out of towns to earn money while the women tend to stay at home and look after the household and community. So women have to stay at home, work more to feed the family, while not getting enough financial support. This is usually the case for women in rural areas.

If we think globally, including urban women, while they do not face the implications of climate change and environment as directly as women of rural areas do, they are still in more vulnerable position than men are. In this world where we keep talking about equality and rights and seeing so many shining examples of success, majority of women all across the globe are still weak in economic power than men. Especially for single mothers who have to bear the cost of the affected infrastructure, housing, food and more, this makes it more difficult for them to recover. For indigenous women who rely on natural resources for their livelihood, they face multiple forms of discrimination due to their gender, ethnicity and poverty.   

It is often said in climate change related discussions that the poor are the most vulnerable to climate change, but women are “poorer among the poor”. Disasters do not affect everyone equally, but women do face the tougher consequences, especially poor women.

When governments and organizations work on climate change issues and policies, it is important to consider gender sensitivity. Involving women into the climate change discussion is really important and it requires not only economic but also political empowerment of women. Recently I have been working on a paper about integration of gender perspective into climate change policies of my country and regarding this, I have some questions to everyone-

·         Does your country have specific policies about climate change? If so, do you think it takes specific gender issues into account?

·         What kind of gender specific impacts of climate change do you see in your country?