Copenhagen must bring gender justice

This article was published in The Guardian 15 December 2009

Marginalised women across the developing world will be hit hard by climate change – but their voices are rarely heard.

Adaptation to climatic variability is perhaps the greatest challenge facing humanity in the coming decades. Two intertwined factors shape this challenge and determine how we respond. The first concerns water – the basis for human life – and the second concerns questions of social equity and gender justice. Both find little mention in the various policy documents under negotiation at Copenhagen. Yet by 2025, it is estimated that almost two-thirds of the world's population are likely to experience water stress, and for 1 billion of them, this will be severe and socially disruptive. Across the developing world, the predominant responsibility that poor rural and urban women have for domestic water collection, food security and health suggests that they will be among the most vulnerable.

Without collateral in the form of land titles or other assets in their name, women have little access to social protection measures or risk sharing mechanisms such as micro insurance, which are critical to the development of adaptive capacity.