Gender, Generations, Social Difference & Climate Change

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Essie Apenteng who provided research assistance in identifying literature and constructing the annotated bibliography. Thanks are also extended to Professor John Morton at NRI for his comments on an early draft and to Nicola Jones at ODI who commissioned the study and provided several sets of constructive comments.

Gender, Generations, Social Protection & Climate Change: - A thematic review

Contents

Tables, figures & boxes iv

Abbreviations v

Executive summary vi

1 Introduction 1

2 The literature 2

3 Unpacking climate vulnerability and resilience and broader environmental pressures 5

4 Gender and Climate Change Issues 10

5 Children and Climate Change 25

6 Older people and climate change 36

7 Social protection in the context of climate change 38

8 Conclusions 45

References 52

Annex 1: Annotated Bibliography 60

Tables, figures & boxes

Tables

Table 1: Table 1: Key characteristics of social protection, adaptation and disaster risk reduction 4

Table 2: Promoting adaptation through social protection 4

Figures

Figure 1: Figure 1: Gender and Climate Change 1

Boxes

Box 1: 12 Point Principles for ‘Engendering REDD’ (GCCA, IUCN, WOCAN, 2009) 21

Box 2: Smallholder risk reduction, micro-insurance and credit in Ethiopia 43

Abbreviations

Executive summary

This thematic review and annotated bibliography explores the gender and social difference dimensions of vulnerability and adaptive capacity in relation to climate change. Climate-related shocks and stresses are adding pressure to the already precarious livelihoods of marginalised peoples experiencing poverty and a range of other constraints in the global South - and will increasingly do so with progressive climate change. This study provides an introductory outline of key concepts in climate change vulnerability and resilience, but situates these firmly in a broader understanding of institutional and environmental vulnerability. A comprehensive review of the literature has been undertaken on four key topics: gender and climate change; children and climate change; older people and climate change; and finally social protection and climate change. This paper summarises the key insights from this literature to inform policy-makers, practitioners and researchers of the current thinking in this field.

Climate change poses challenges on a new scale for humanity, particularly for the populations of lower income countries. There has been relatively limited in-depth analysis of the gender dimensions of climate change to date, partly because of the uncertainties of climate change science and the lack of downscaled data which makes it hard to predict how the climate will change at a very local level, and because social change processes are difficult to predict. However, the literature indicates that women are disproportionately vulnerable to climate change, because they are more likely to be found in the poorest sections of society, have fewer resources to cope, and are more reliant on climate-sensitive resources because of the gender division of labour. They tend to have lesser access to livelihood resources and hence more limited capacity to participate in climate change adaptation processes – although they should be treated as active agents rather than victims. Although, all members of poorer communities will be affected, women and female headed households are likely to be most affected by increasing extreme weather events, greater climate variability and long-term shifts in climate averages. Children and the elderly have certain unique vulnerabilities and capabilities with respect to climate change, but these are also shaped by social determinants. So while all societies will be affected by climate change, the impacts will vary by location, exposure, and context specific social characteristics, identity, power relations and political economy.

Scientific studies are continuing to understand this phenomenon and to deliver more accurate and downscaled projections. Climate mitigation, low carbon pathways and latterly adaptation responses are being researched and piloted by the international community and national governments, as well as civil society and local communities, but these interventions and policy decisions also have gender and social difference dimensions in terms of their design processes and objectives, their implementation and their impacts.

More analysis is emerging in the academic, policy and practitioner literature on gender and climate change adaptation, although a fair amount of this literature is based on desk studies drawing on previous responses to climate variability. Section 4 reviews literature on gender and climate change, Section 5 covers children and climate change studies, and Section 6 focuses on older people and climate change materials. All three sections examine the specific impacts on more vulnerable groups, as well as the challenges of representation in international and national policy processes and in local decision-making. Generally speaking, there is a larger body of literature on gender issues in relation to climate change, compared to the material on the other two issues. These three bodies of work have developed separately, with very little inter-connection, despite the fact that there are in fact closely intertwined. There are also some clear gaps in research such as analysis of climate change and ethnicity or caste, and the intersection between different lines of social difference. The majority of the studies focus on rural settings, rather than urban contexts, and adaptation has also been more centre-stage than mitigation as a topic for analysis using a gender and social difference lens.

Common threads can be identified in the literature on gender and generations and climate change, such as: the importance of moving beyond notions of these groups as passive in the face of challenges; and highlighting their ability to act as active agents of change, given adequate support, including their representation in international and national policy processes. Many of the studies attempt to tease out the types of impacts that these groups may face on a disproportionate scale and the social and biological reasons why. Understandably, there is relatively little in-depth field research from which to draw insights because of the nature of climate change science and because many climate policies and programmes are only just being implemented. Several studies provide detailed analysis of the international UNFCCC negotiations process and show how gender activists are seeking to engender the climate regime. Some authors have critiqued the focus of attention in climate change and gender debates on retrofitting climate finance market mechanisms to become more gender- or generation-friendly, rather than the alternative, which they argue would be the finding and envisioning of strategies and overall development pathways that are designed with women, children, older people and social relations in mind.

Section 7 reviews the literature on the role of social protection in responding to climate change. Social protection is an important component of supporting groups that are vulnerable to shocks and stresses, to enable them to survive and to cope with such difficulties without asset stripping. However, until recently the role of social protection in responding to climate change has been neglected. Emerging conceptual studies and some empirical findings propose that while there are differences between social protection, disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation approaches, there are also clear overlaps and potential synergies. Greater convergence is important in theory and in practice.

Because of existing power inequalities and social norms, the impacts of climate change will not be felt evenly, but will be overlaid onto existing patterns of vulnerability within rural and urban populations and communities – and may make patterns of inequality more pronounced. There are already some types of social protection that have been shown to be effective, such as cash transfers. There are newer types of social protection, such as weather-index insurance, that are only beginning to be implemented. The gender and social difference dimensions need to be further analysed as these programmes are put into practice. There is also an argument that more transformative forms of social protection may be needed in certain locations, (such as promotion of minority rights, anti-discrimination campaigns, social funds), to change social relations and confront the root causes of discrimination and inequality. To achieve social protection that is ‘adaptive’ also requires integration of climate knowledge (scientific and local) into decision-making and policy/programme design. Ultimately, climate change responses can only be equitable if they place the empowerment of women and marginalized groups and the tackling of gender and social inequality centre-stage.

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Gender, Generations, Social Protection & Climate Change: - A thematic review

1  Introduction

This thematic review and annotated bibliography explores the environmental vulnerabilities faced by less affluent and powerful communities and groups, in particular the climate-related shocks and stresses adding pressure to already precarious livelihoods. The role of social protection measures in enabling particularly vulnerable groups to respond to these pressures is also explored. Because of existing power inequalities and social norms, the impacts of climate change will not be felt evenly, but will play into existing patterns of vulnerability within rural and urban populations and communities – and are likely to make patterns of inequality more pronounced.

Women and female-headed households are disproportionately represented in groups experiencing poverty, and are affected by all kinds of pressures (e.g. HIV/AIDs, regionalising and globalising markets, population increase and land fragmentation, localized environmental degradation etc.). Women and female-headed households tend to have fewer resources to cope with and adapt to stresses of all kinds, and rely on more climate sensitive resources and livelihoods. Moreover, climate disturbances are projected to increasingly pressurize poor rural and urban communities in many areas of the world. It is thus critical to understand how the impacts of climate change will be differentiated. It is also important to understand how climate policy-processes and decision-making are rarely gender neutral. There should be efforts to avoid negative impacts of climate change responses (e.g. mitigation and adaptation policies, programmes, and autonomous actions) and instead find opportunities to promote women’s empowerment and that of other marginalised or disadvantaged groups. This thematic review explores the gender and generational dimensions of environmental vulnerability and resilience and considers some of the implications for social protection in particular. This thematic review is based on an accompanying annotated bibliography, which includes 121 studies on children and climate change in developing countries, climate change and social protection, gender and climate change and older people and climate change.

This paper gives a general oversight of the relevant literature and its strengths and weaknesses (section 2), before unpacking environmental and climatic vulnerability and resilience (section 3), and then identifying the specific gender dimensions of climate change (section 4), and age-related differences, covering children and climate change (section 5) and older people and climate change (section 6). The implications of gender-differentiated and generation-differentiated impacts of climate change are explored in relation to the opportunities presented by social and self-protection to improve disaster risk reduction and adaptation and the changes needed to achieve ‘adaptive social protection’. The final section (section 8) synthesizes the key findings of this review.

2  The literature

Initially, the climate change field was dominated by the biophysical sciences, but in recent years the development community and social sciences have engaged more fully in identifying the myriad development implications of a changing climate. From a slow start, there is now increased analysis of the social, political, economic and cultural dimensions of climate change. However, it is not always easy to separate the climatic and non-climatic factors at work, and which are creating change in a particular place. The uncertainties of climate change projections, particularly below national level, combine with the inherent complexities of social, environmental, economic and technological change in any given place, which are in turn influenced and driven by processes across scales. This creates a complex picture. In many smallholder farming systems, for example, farmers are already coping with and adapting to on-going shocks and stresses, including, but not limited to, climate variability. Therefore teasing out how the climate and gender dynamics will interact in any particular place is not that easy and particularly over longer time horizons.

Climate change is expected to lead to increases in extreme events, increasing climate variability, and longer-term shifts in means (e.g. average temperature and precipitation). Only some climate change impacts (such as sea level rise and glacial melt) can be attributed directly to anthropogenic climate change. In many other areas climate change is currently experienced as an increase in extreme events and their intensity (although no one hurricane or flood can be attributed to climate change) and/or increasing climate variability. In some regions of the world, local communities are already experienced in coping with and adapting to climate variability, for example in drylands such as the semi-arid zones of Tanzania. According to many authors there is increasing evidence from local populations that levels of variability and unpredictability are increasing beyond what they are normally used to – and in parallel with localised processes of environmental change in many areas (see Maddison, 2006; Nelson and Stathers, 2009).