WOMEN AND CLIMATE ACTION

In both rural and urban contexts, women are more vulnerable to heat stress and air pollution in low and middle-income countries like India

- SUNAINA KUMAR

WOMEN ARE OFTEN referred to as the “shock absorbers” of climate change, who are on the frontlines of the crisis. Across the country, many stories illustrate how women are most impacted by climate change and are responding with innovative solutions. In Zaheerabad, a semi-arid, drought-prone region in Telangana, women farmers have formed sanghams (village-level voluntary groups) to shift from water-intensive rice and wheat farming to grow millets, climate resilient and hardy grains. This has helped fight chronic malnutrition and food insecurity in the community along with replenishing the water table. The practice has become so widespread that more than 14,000 women across 50 villages are a part of the movement. While in Kendrapara, a coastal district in Odisha, which has been facing erratic weather patterns, with droughts one year and floods the next, women farmers have taken up climate-resilient methods for cultivating rice, with less water and fewer chemicals and getting higher yields.

It is now widely accepted that the climate crisis is not gender neutral. To begin with, climate change exacerbates existing gender inequalities and creates new vulnerabilities. As a threat multiplier, climate change worsens food, water, economic, and health insecurity. Women, particularly those from low-income house-holds in rural and urban areas, often bear the brunt of disruptions caused by climate change. By 2050, climate change may push up to 158 million more women and girls into poverty, according to the United Nations.