UN Women call for more gender-focused climate finance
As COP29 approaches its conclusion there are renewed calls for more action and resources to tackle the impact of the environmental crisis on females.
Thursday 21st November is recognised by the UN as Gender Day. Using this as a platform, campaigners are now calling for a ‘gender-responsive’ approach to climate finance.
According to advocates, this would lead to fairer resource allocation, greater opportunities for women and girls, and increased agency. It is widely understood that in many situations females bear a greater brunt of the crisis than males.
‘The climate crisis is not gender-neutral. Women and girls disproportionately bear the brunt of climate change, yet their voices remain largely underrepresented in climate decision-making,’ said Jemimah Njuki, UN Women Chief of Women’s Economic Empowerment. “We need financing to go to addressing gender inequalities and to go to grassroots women’s organisations.’
Under worse case scenario modelling of the next 70 years of climate change, 158million more women and girls will be pushed into poverty. This exceeds the number of men who will experience a similar slide in economic and living standards by around 16million.
An increase in unpaid care and domestic work, for example collecting water and materials used to heat homes, are just two contributing factors. Despite the numbers, as of 2022 just 3% of official environmental development assistance had gender equality-aligned objectives. Bringing things up to date, at COP29 less than 8% of leaders speaking at the event’s opening mentioned the disproportionate impact of the crisis on women.
‘Gender-responsive climate finance means to ensure that the quality of finance delivers on equity, including debt justice and uplifting those most impacted by climate shocks instead of leaving them vulnerable,’ said Ayshka Najib, co-founder of Fridays For Future MAPA and a member of the Generation Equality Feminist Action for Climate Justice coalition.
More on COP29:
UK commits $15m to Global Cooling Pledge, sector decarbonisation mapped
Image: Tucker Tangeman via Unsplash