Climate Crisis Impacts on Gender Inequality

Liputan6.com, Jakarta The earth’s population continues to increase so too, along with human needs.

But what earthlings rarely realize is that the earth is getting older.

Many areas are experiencing extreme climate change. Climate change also drives some areas to experience natural disasters.

Thus, human access to basic needs becomes difficult. Environmental pollution worsens this situation.

Extreme climate change affects humans, nature, and animal life on Earth.

In recent decades, the climate crisis has been at the top of the campaign agenda of global organizations, forums, and communities. Many efforts, not only campaigns but also concrete actions, have been made to avoid the side effects of the climate crisis.

The most important thing is not how to save the earth. The earth will still be damaged, saved, or not saved. The point is how to make humans survive longer on an aging earth.

Setting the maximum temperature rise limit to 1.5 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial temperatures is one effort to deal with the climate crisis. However, according to the State of the Global Climate report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), it will not be easy under current conditions.

“Never have we been so close — albeit on a temporary basis at the moment — to the 1.5° C lower limit of the Paris Agreement on climate change.” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo. “The WMO community is sounding the Red Alert to the world.”

According to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Service, the average global temperature in the past 12 months has exceeded the 1.5-degree Celsius limit with an average temperature of 1.56 degrees Celsius.

“Sirens are blaring across all major indicators… Some records aren’t just chart-topping, they’re chart-busting. And changes are speeding-up.” said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres. “The latest State of the Global Climate report shows that our planet is on the brink of collapse. Fossil fuel pollution is making climate chaos worse.”

This climate crisis will make the earth worse. The earth will not be healthy for humans to live on.

The problems do not only affect biodiversity. Humans who live on earth also experience social problems due to the climate crisis. These social problems include violence, human rights violations, forced displacement, and even gender inequality.

According to data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), by 2022, as many as 84 percent of asylum seekers and refugees will come from climate crisis-prone countries. This figure has also increased dramatically from 2010, when it was 61 percent.

A number of large groups are also forced to move to climate crisis-prone countries. In their new countries, they face difficulties in obtaining basic needs.

Women are among those most affected by the climate crisis. The impacts are linked to women’s roles and responsibilities, as well as the culture, norms, and social constructs around them.

The climate crisis is a multiple threat to women. In their daily lives, women must face the danger of gender inequality. Then, it is worsened by the climate crisis, which makes the gap even worse.

The UN found that the climate crisis can increase the risk of violence against women by their partners, girls being pulled out of school, and child marriage.

Not only that, the climate crisis will also increase sexual harassment and human trafficking.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reports that by 2022, the climate crisis will destroy jobs, make people poor, and then force people to leave their homes or communities. This can increase the risk of women facing sexual exploitation.

Women will become easy targets for abusers and traffickers. They will look for women in unfamiliar cities or women forced to live in crowded shelters full of strangers.

“When we look at who’s affected worse, who’s on the frontlines of the climate crisis, it’s primarily women — women in poor and vulnerable countries,” Selwin Hart, UN Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Climate Action and Just Transition, told CNN. “And unfortunately, our policies or strategies are really not geared to address this challenge.”

Nigeria

According to data from UNICEF, in Nigeria more than 10 million children aged five to 14 are not in education. In Nigeria’s northeast and southwest regions, less than half of all girls attend school.

Poverty, geography and gender discrimination are some of the factors that keep children out of school in Nigeria. These problems are also exacerbated by the climate crisis.

The climate crisis in Nigeria is real. Temperatures continue to rise, making Nigeria hot and dry. Extreme weather makes natural disasters more frequent. The effects of these disasters make schools difficult to access because they are unsafe.

Families affected by the climate crisis often turn to their children to help support the family economy. In Nigeria, many girls have been banned from school and now find it difficult to access education due to the climate crisis.

Brazil

The climate crisis and deforestation for agriculture and livestock will threaten the Amazon rainforest. In fact, the Amazon rainforest absorbs more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than it releases. It is the forest’s most important carbon sink.

A group of women in the Amazon Basin in Eastern Brazil oppose the companies that control the Amazon rainforest.

There are about 60 percent of women whose work collecting coconuts from palm trees is now under threat. When interviewed by CNN, their lives are threatened because the companies continue to cut down the forest and restrict their access to their daily work.

The women confronted them by forming the Interstate Movement of Babassu Breakers (MIQCB). The 2,000-member group united to protect and secure access to the native babassu palm forest. Not only are they fighting for jobs and food security, but they are also fighting for gender equality.

Philippines

According to the UN, the rate of human trafficking in the Philippines increased after the 2013 Typhoon Haiyan disaster that killed around 6,000 people.

The Philippines established several organizations to end human trafficking as a response step. A concrete step was the creation of the People’s Recovery Empowerment Development Assistance Foundation (PREDA) which focuses on helping free women from brothels and sex traffickers and providing them with protection.

Pakistan

One of the hottest cities on earth, Jacobabad City in Sindh Province, Pakistan, recorded the highest temperature at 50 degrees Celsius in 2022.

According to research from the White Ribbon Alliance, many pregnant women there are experiencing health problems. But those mothers have to work outdoors. Their bodies are further burdened by a lack of rest on hot days.

Then, after the women gave birth, some had difficulty breastfeeding in the heat.

Guatemala

The rainy season that usually occurs in May has now shifted. When it does rain, it is often heavy and disastrous. That makes Guatemala one of the countries most vulnerable to the climate crisis.

This crisis most affects Guatemala’s western highlands. Due to destroyed crops, people’s jobs have been lost, and those who lost their jobs have had to move to other cities or countries.

Women are the most affected by limited access to education, employment, and social services. That makes men the majority and doubles the burden on women. The women had to support the house and the children while they also had to work.

Bangladesh

Save the Children says that Bangladesh is a “crisis point” for women’s rights. The climate crisis is pushing women in Bangladesh further into poverty.

Many families are increasingly desperate because their financial situation is not good. Meanwhile, to ease the financial burden, girls in Bangladesh are married off.

One of them is Marufa Khatun in southwestern Bangladesh, according to a CNN report, Khatun was married at 11 because her family’s finances collapsed after cyclones and floods hit.

Khatun is now 14 years old and a mother of a 3-month-old baby. “I got married early because natural disasters are common nowadays and our father cannot afford our expenses,” she said.

Governments around the world have agreed to end child marriage by 2030. But according to Save the Children’s analysis, nearly 9 million girls around the world face extreme risks of climate disasters and child marriage every year.