Climate Change as a Women's Issue

Climate change poses a threat to women all over the world, and particularly those women who live in developing nations and women in low-income communities in developed nations. The effect of climate change [Page 298]on women in developing nations is particularly severe because of women's unequal access to resources such as credit and property ownership; dependency on local natural resources; responsibility for supplying their households with water, energy for cooking and heating, and food; and increased vulnerability in natural disasters because of limited mobility.

Gendered cultural norms also compound these threats. For example, in some cultures women are not taught to swim, thus limiting their chances of survival in a natural disaster such as a tsunami. In addition, although their perspectives on effective local strategies ...