Women and the poor will bear the most brunt of climate change and the problems arising out of it, says a United Nations Population Fund (UNPFA) report.
Quoting various researches, the report, State of World Population, says natural disasters, including those related to extreme weather, kill more women than men.
The poor are especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change - an alarming find for women, considering that a majority of the 1.5 billion Indians living on $1 a day or less belong to the fair sex.
Since the poor are mostly dependent on agriculture, they risk losing their livelihood when droughts strike and rains become unpredictable.
Global warming is likely to alter the summer monsoon pattern, causing widespread drought. The impact can be disastrous, since 490 million people of the country (60% of rural or 42% of total population) are dependent on marginal or small farm holdings. Any change in the summer monsoon will immediately threaten their livelihood.
In India, 51% of land sown (68 of 133 million hectares) is rain-fed. As such, the effect of climate change in the form of drought will be devastating for the country.
The report draws attention to populations in low-lying coastal areas that are at a greater risk and calls on governments to plan ahead to strengthen risk-reduction, preparedness and management of disasters and address potential displacement of people. Low-elevated coastal zones that are less than 10 metres above sea level are home to 13% of the world’s urban population. Among the world’s largest cities at risk due to increase in sea level are Mumbai, Dhaka, Jakarta, New York, Shanghai and Tokyo.
The report says extreme weather conditions are met with poor demands, causing further damage. “In many cases, failures in environmental management increased the impact of climate hazards. In India, the 2008 rains caused serious flooding, not because they were heavy, but because of the failure of poorly-maintained dams and river banks. A breach in the Kosi river embankment in August 2008 led to one of the worst floods in the history of Bihar, the poorest state in India.”
Investments that empower women and girls — particularly education and health — bolster economic development and reduce poverty and have a beneficial impact on climate. For example, girls with more education tend to have smaller and healthier families as adults. Women with access to reproductive health services, including family planning, have lower fertility rates that contribute to slower growth in greenhouse gas emissions in the long run.
