Dear RG collegues, I have got an information from BBC (https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-43294221) indicating that women are more likely to be affected by climate change than men. I have copied all the information here and please have a look in to it.
Women are more likely than men to be affected by climate change, studies show.
UN figures indicate that 80% of people displaced by climate change are women.
Roles as primary caregivers and providers of food and fuel make them more vulnerable when flooding and drought occur.
The 2015 Paris Agreement has made specific provision for the empowerment of women, recognising that they are disproportionately impacted.
In central Africa, where up to 90% of Lake Chad has disappeared, nomadic indigenous groups are particularly at risk. As the lake's shoreline recedes, women have to walk much further to collect water.
"In the dry season, men go to the towns... leaving women to look after the community," explains Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, coordinator of the Association of Indigenous Women and People of Chad (AFPAT).
With dry seasons now becoming longer, women are working harder to feed and care for their families without support. "They become more vulnerable... it's very hard work," Ibrahim recently told the BBC's 100 Women initiative.
A global problem
It is not just women in rural areas who are affected. Globally, women are more likely to experience poverty, and to have less socioeconomic power than men. This makes it difficult to recover from disasters which affect infrastructure, jobs and housing.
After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, African American women were among the worst affected by flooding in Louisiana. As sea levels rise, low-lying cities like New Orleans will be increasingly at risk.
"In New Orleans, there was much higher poverty among the African American population before Katrina," says Jacquelyn Litt, professor of women's and gender studies at Rutgers University.
"More than half the poor families in the city were headed by single mothers," she told BBC News.
"[They] are reliant on interdependent community networks for their everyday survival and resources. The displacement that happened after Katrina essentially eroded those networks. It places women and their children at much greater risk."
In the immediate aftermath of extreme events, emergency shelters can be inadequately equipped to support women. The Superdome, in which evacuees were temporarily housed after Hurricane Katrina, didn't have enough sanitary products for the women accommodated there.
Increased incidences of violence against women, including sexual assault and rape, have also been documented in the wake of disasters.
'Natural' disasters?
Much as climate change is accelerated by human behaviours, the impact of weather and climate events is influenced by societal structures. Disasters do not affect all people equally.
In the wake of the 2004 tsunami, an Oxfam report found that surviving men outnumbered women by almost 3:1 in Sri Lanka, Indonesia and India.
While no one cause was clear, there were similar patterns across the region. Men were more likely to be able to swim, and women lost precious evacuation time trying to look after children and other relatives.
Another study spanning 20 years noted that catastrophic events lowered women's life expectancy more than men; more women were being killed, or they were being killed younger. In countries where women had greater socioeconomic power, the difference reduced.
Dear RG collegues, I have got an information from BBC (https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-43294221) indicating that women are more likely to be affected by climate change than men. I have copied all the information here and please have a look in to it.
Women are more likely than men to be affected by climate change, studies show.
UN figures indicate that 80% of people displaced by climate change are women.
Roles as primary caregivers and providers of food and fuel make them more vulnerable when flooding and drought occur.
The 2015 Paris Agreement has made specific provision for the empowerment of women, recognising that they are disproportionately impacted.
In central Africa, where up to 90% of Lake Chad has disappeared, nomadic indigenous groups are particularly at risk. As the lake's shoreline recedes, women have to walk much further to collect water.
"In the dry season, men go to the towns... leaving women to look after the community," explains Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, coordinator of the Association of Indigenous Women and People of Chad (AFPAT).
With dry seasons now becoming longer, women are working harder to feed and care for their families without support. "They become more vulnerable... it's very hard work," Ibrahim recently told the BBC's 100 Women initiative.
A global problem
It is not just women in rural areas who are affected. Globally, women are more likely to experience poverty, and to have less socioeconomic power than men. This makes it difficult to recover from disasters which affect infrastructure, jobs and housing.
After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, African American women were among the worst affected by flooding in Louisiana. As sea levels rise, low-lying cities like New Orleans will be increasingly at risk.
"In New Orleans, there was much higher poverty among the African American population before Katrina," says Jacquelyn Litt, professor of women's and gender studies at Rutgers University.
"More than half the poor families in the city were headed by single mothers," she told BBC News.
"[They] are reliant on interdependent community networks for their everyday survival and resources. The displacement that happened after Katrina essentially eroded those networks. It places women and their children at much greater risk."
In the immediate aftermath of extreme events, emergency shelters can be inadequately equipped to support women. The Superdome, in which evacuees were temporarily housed after Hurricane Katrina, didn't have enough sanitary products for the women accommodated there.
Increased incidences of violence against women, including sexual assault and rape, have also been documented in the wake of disasters.
'Natural' disasters?
Much as climate change is accelerated by human behaviours, the impact of weather and climate events is influenced by societal structures. Disasters do not affect all people equally.
In the wake of the 2004 tsunami, an Oxfam report found that surviving men outnumbered women by almost 3:1 in Sri Lanka, Indonesia and India.
While no one cause was clear, there were similar patterns across the region. Men were more likely to be able to swim, and women lost precious evacuation time trying to look after children and other relatives.
Another study spanning 20 years noted that catastrophic events lowered women's life expectancy more than men; more women were being killed, or they were being killed younger. In countries where women had greater socioeconomic power, the difference reduced.
Because women are sensitive and very influenced by the atmosphere around them and their emotions are moving in many situations, I expect the answer is yes, women are more affected by climate change than men.
According to the US Census Bureau, 50.8 percent of Americans are female. They’re mothers, caregivers, and heads of family – and they’re also feeling the effects of climate change, particularly on their health.
Climate Reality Leaders and health professionals Bruce Bekkar and Susan Pacheco know that climate change hits women particularly hard. “As an obstetrician, I want people to see how much climate change is already affecting girls and women right here in the US. Susan Pacheco, a pediatrician, and I share the concern that these effects are both cumulative and increasing,” Bruce told Climate Reality.
Bruce and Susan are working on an academic article discussing how climate change uniquely impacts women’s health in the US. We sat down with them to discuss why the climate crisis is a women’s issue, here’s what we learned.
CLIMATE AND WOMEN’S HEALTH
Everyone knows about the financial costs of the climate crisis as heatwaves, wildfires, and storms become more powerful and more frequent. For example, in 2017, weather and climate disasters caused more than $300 billion in damage according to the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI).
But the costs of our changing climate aren’t just financial. As temperatures rise, everyone, including children playing outside are increasingly at risk from heat-related illnesses and the expanding tropical diseases. Plus, burning fossil fuels releases toxic pollutants into the air we breathe, which can cause more frequent asthma flare ups and higher rates of illnesses like lung and heart disease.
And women feel these health issues more acutely. According to Bruce and Susan, “There is evidence of how climate change is associated with an increase in asthma in adolescent girls, a higher risk of acquiring lung cancer and heart disease in mid-life, and heart attacks, strokes, and dementia in older women.”
The research is especially concerning for pregnant women. “Adverse pregnancy outcomes, specifically premature birth and low birth weight, both of which often have life-long consequences, as well as stillbirth, have been associated with increasing heat and air pollution,” they said.
Of course, women are more adjustable in nature....but their homeostasis of hormones are affected by climate changes....so there may be some effect due to internal hormonal changes....
It is not possible a draw of line demarcation for women affecting the climate change as it is a physical condition such as affection of cold , nausea, cough, Khasi, throat infection & such minor ailments which may affect them for the change in the environment .
With this it is not only the women who are undergoing their affection to the cold even human being also have to undergo the effect of the environment .
in another sense, perhaps because of the concern of the future of their children and grandchildren, climate change affects them more, it is a possibility