Climate change disproportionately affects women. Statistics show 80% of people displaced by climate change is women. Roles as primary caregivers and providers of food and fuel make them more vulnerable when flooding and drought occur.
‘Women are more likely than men to be affected by climate change.’
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The 2015 Paris Agreement has made specific provision for the empowerment of women, recognising that they are disproportionately impacted. In central Africa, where up to 90 per cent of Lake Chad has disappeared, nomadic indigenous groups are particularly at risk. As the lake's shoreline recedes, women have to walk much further to collect water.
"In the dry season, men go to the towns leaving women to look after the community," Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, coordinator of the Association of Indigenous Women and People of Chad (AFPAT), told the BBC.
With dry seasons now becoming longer, women are working harder to feed and care for their families without support.
"They become more vulnerable... It's very hard work," Ibrahim added.
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The Superdome, in which evacuees were temporarily housed after Hurricane Katrina, did not have enough sanitary products for the women accommodated there.
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Another study spanning 20 years noted that catastrophic events lowered women's life expectancy more than men; more women were being killed, or they were being killed younger. In countries where women had greater socioeconomic power, the difference reduced.
Source-IANS