Op-ed: Building women’s resilience to climate-driven poverty and food insecurity

Women and girls from impoverished and marginalized communities bear the brunt of these devastating climate impacts. A study conducted by UN Women on why climate change matters for women found that women living in arid areas or in areas that experienced frequent and severe droughts were more likely to experience child marriage, adolescent births, and hardship associated with collecting water and cooking with unclean fuels. For them, these climate hazards are not mere inconveniences but existential threats to life, livelihoods, and hopes for a better future.

As climate change intensifies, women’s health and well-being are increasingly threatened. According to UN Women’s estimates, in a worst-case climate scenario, by 2050 as many as 158 million women and girls may be pushed into extreme poverty as a direct result of sustained increases in global temperatures. Food insecurity caused by climate change is also projected to increase by as much as 236 million more women and girls. Sub-Saharan Africa, with a projected increase in female poverty of 93 million and an increase in female food insecurity of 105 million, is anticipated to be among the regions most impacted. The second largest spikes in absolute numbers of female poverty and food insecurity are projected to take place in Central and Southern Asia. There, under a worst-case scenario, 29 million more females will be pushed into poverty and 57 million more into food insecurity by 2050.

Yet, amid this bleak picture, there is a glimmer of hope. Indigenous communities, the guardians of our planet’s most pristine landscapes, have long called for a different approach to development. They advocate for a path that values and protects nature as an equal to us, its human inhabitants. In many countries, laws are evolving to protect the environment and all beings that depend on it. In India, for example, the courts increasingly recognize natural resources like glaciers, rivers, and mountains as entities needing protection and, as a result, have granted them personhood status under the law. Other countries, including Bangladesh, Colombia, Panama, and Uganda, as well as other communities and local governments, are enacting similar laws with a focus not only on the “rights of nature” but also on the duties and obligations of humans to protect it. Women at the forefront of these efforts, as it turns out, not only have the most to lose but are also the most active in the collective efforts to combat climate change.