Cross-cut Chapter 3 GLOBAL GENDER AND ENVIRONMENT OUTLOOK Food Chapter 1


Water


between 1994 and 2013 were climate and weather events (UNISDR n.d.).


Chapter 4: Energy


Climate change, understood as an identifiable change in the state of the climate (from whatever cause) that lasts for an extended period (IPCC 2012), provides a backdrop of uncertainty for all the topics addressed in the GGEO report. The projected increase in extreme weather and climate events unsettles the (admittedly often tenuous) statistical likelihood of repeated events such as floods or storms and makes planning, mitigation or adaptation a challenge for individuals, communities and countries. Climate change can also be regarded as a threat multiplier that “may intensify existing social, economic, political and environmental problems that communities are facing already; exacerbate grievances; overwhelm coping and adaptive capacities; and at times spur forced or proactive migration” (Bob et al. 2014).


Chapter 2


Projected climatic changes will lead to changes in the frequency, intensity, spatial extent, duration and extremes of weather and climate events (IPCC 2012) which will almost certainly have direct impacts on people’s security, livelihoods and health through increased frequency or extremes of heat waves, flooding and droughts; rising sea levels; and, indirectly, health impacts such as the expansion (spatially and temporally) of infectious diseases or disruption of the food supply. All these impacts are also associated with mental health impacts such as stress, anxiety and depression (IPCC 2012; Climate and Development Knowledge Network 2012).


Migration is one adaptation strategy to deal with extremes of environmental change. All evidence on migration shows that it is highly gendered, whether it is caused by environmental change or poor governance and whether it is voluntary, compelled or involuntary (Fröhlich and Gioli 2015; O’Hagan 2015; Detraz and Windsor 2014; Wodon et al. 2014). Women and men migrate in almost equal numbers overall, but their triggers for migration and subsequent experiences are different and contingent. People already in a vulnerable position are likely to be hardest hit by disasters and compelled migration, and to be at higher risk overall of climate-generated violence and conflict of various kinds. Gendered analysis


affects how compelled 176


migrations are conceptualized: it “shifts the perspective away from a state security focus (with its potential for militarization) towards a human (in)security focus


which humanizes” the migration phenomenon and is more inclusive of humanitarian concerns (Detraz and Windsor 2014).


The Lancet’s 2015 Commission on Health and Climate Change argued that


climate change threatens to


undermine the last half-century of gains in development and global health while, on the other hand, tackling climate change effectively could present the greatest global health opportunity of the 21st century (Watts et al. 2015). For example, reducing air pollution and respiratory diseases would be a health co-benefit of reducing emissions from fossil fuel burning. Other adaptation options could provide multiple benefits. Suitably gender-responsive early warning systems of various kinds can give necessary alerts to trigger pre- emptive rather than reactive responses. Enhancing food security can bring many benefits, not least to women and girls who tend to eat least and last in many parts of the world. Investing in public health infrastructure, education interventions, and processes to reduce infectious disease incidence, among many other examples, can improve the everyday situation of millions across the world. Green urban design can offset heat wave impacts and provide extra benefits for obesity reduction or reduced mental stress (see Watts et al. 2015 for many more suggestions). In this way climate change typifies crisis, which always encompasses both risks and opportunities. The worst impacts of climate change (especially on marginalized groups) that have been predicted are not inevitable. They are contingent upon how the global “community” of UN Member States and local communities approach mitigation and adaptation challenges.


Conflicts


Conflicts and militarism are closely linked to all gender and environment domains within a complex web. The assumption and imposition of different gendered roles and responsibilities that prevail in peacetime continue during conflicts, often in more extreme forms (Enloe 2014). The international actors who often lead post-conflict reconstruction typically frame men and women in strict and stereotypical gender roles that further reinforce inequalities in post-conflict situations (Puechguirbal 2012; UN Women 2012; Cohn 2008; Cohn et al. 2004). Women are often sidelined in peace talks and negotiations because of a strict division of labour that (re)assigns traditional roles


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