Federal Minister for Climate Change Mushahid Ullah Khan on Sunday said that Women, who constitute the majority of the world’s poor, are among the most vulnerable to the detrimental impacts of climate change, particularly in developing countries including Pakistan. Yet, they are also vital for solutions to the impacts.
He expressed these views in his statement released on Sunday in light of the International Women’s Day 2015.
Women’s day is celebrated on March 8 every year. This year the it is being marked under the theme of “Empowering Women – Empowering Humanity: Picture It!”, which envisions a world where each woman and girl can exercise her choices, such as participating in politics, getting an education, having an income, and living in societies free from violence and discrimination.
Mushahid Ullah said that the day calls us all for encouraging effective action for advancing and recognising women for unprecedented value of their role, which is vital to achieve socio-economic development goals in both developing and developed countries.
Talking about gender dimensions in the context of impacts of climate change, the minister said that climate change would affect women and men differently due to their different roles with regard to water use.
Mushahid Ullah further said that women generally assume primary responsibility for collecting water for drinking, cooking, washing, hygiene and raising small livestock. On the other hand, men use water for irrigation or livestock farming and for industries. These divergent roles mean that women and men often have divergent needs and priorities as far as water use is concerned. This knowledge is quite significant in the context of climate change.
The minister observed that women tend to be underrepresented in the decision-making on climate change at all levels in the country. This severely limits their ability to contribute and implement mitigation and adaptation initiatives for fighting negative effects of the rapidly changing weather patterns.
The minister stressed upon the count’s planners, policy and decision makers to ensure that women are equally part of these very processes so that women’s say is adequately reflected in the planning and decision-making processes aimed for building countries climate resilience through mitigation and adaptation plans in all socio-economic sectors.
He also called upon women and gender experts to ensure that they were well informed about the gendered dimensions of climate sensitive sectors, particularly the existing inequalities between men and women and how climate change can exacerbate these inequalities.
“We, however, need to approach gender and climate from many perspectives to ensure that women are present at all levels and dimensions of climate change policy-making, strategising and action,” the minister said.
He emphasises that one of the most pressing issues of the present time, ‘the climate change’, has a range of consequences from the exacerbation of poverty to the collapse of infrastructure, to the loss of environmental, political, economic and social security.
