BY VISHAL GULATI
Glasgow, Nov 9 (IANS): As world leaders meet at COP26 to address the climate crisis, international development charity Christian Aid on Tuesday launched a new report which warns women are disproportionately impacted by climate change and calls for women's "strengths, knowledge and capabilities" to be at the forefront of the climate response.
Fionna Smyth, Head of Global Advocacy and Policy for Christian Aid, explained to IANS that "the fight against climate change is inextricably intertwined with poverty and inequality...transformative policies are required to support women's initiative and leadership".
The report, titled 'Women on the Front Line: Healing the Earth, seeking justice', warns the climate response needs to shift power and resources from the Global North to the Global South. It calls for 70 per cent of climate financing to be targeted at locally led responses, including matching funds for loss and damage to adaptation and mitigation.
Climate finance has been a contentious issue at the underway 26th Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26) in this Scottish city with richer countries, responsible for the bulk of carbon emissions, failing to deliver on their pledge to provide $100 billion by 2020 to help poorer countries.
Christian Aid has called for $500 billion of new funding for the period 2020-2024.
Kenya was one of the countries examined in the report.
Sadia Isacko, an activist who encourages women's groups in Marsabit to attend public forums to discuss the issues affecting them, explains: "Marsabit County was not always like this; yes, it was dry, but not this bad. For women especially, the resources we need have moved further away. Basic resources like water, pasture for our livestock and firewood have diminished further; yet women need these things for their everyday life.
"Every other responsibility is left for women. They don't have access to milk, because the herds are away; they have to take care of children; they have to look for food, as their husbands are hundreds of kilometres away herding livestocka"
The report, which also recommends redirecting subsidies for fossil fuels to measures for gender equity and sustainability, coincides with a statement launched at COP26.
Jointly sponsored by the Scottish government and UN Women, the statement calls for the role of women and girls to be advanced in addressing climate change.
Nushrat Chowdhury, Climate Justice Policy Advisor for Christian Aid and co-author of the report, said: "From the local to the global, the fight against climate change is inextricably intertwined with poverty and inequality.
"By examining the live experience of women across the Global South, we know climate changes are disproportionately impacting women and girls.
"Despite being on the frontline of understanding the impacts on the climate emergency, the impact of old colonial and economic systems mean women are rarely consulted or decide policy or practical approaches."
Smyth added: "To save the planet, we need a dramatic overhaul of the old structures. Transformative policies are required to support women's initiative and leadership and to put them at the heart of a gender just climate response.
"Afterall, people who are vulnerable to climate change know best what is needed in their specific contexts. Christian Aid is therefore calling for 70 per cent of climate financing to be targeted at locally led responses."