Gender and Climate Change: Impacts and Coping Mechanisms of Women and Special Vulnerable Groups

Abstract

Climate change poses challenges on a new scale for humanity, particularly for the populations of lower income countries like Bangladesh. 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. Therefore, it is hard to predict how social changes are varied according to climate change. 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 labor. Furthermore, climate change is now recognized as serious with long-term negative effects on human community and social vulnerability and is not gender-neutral. Women are often vulnerable to climate change impacts where their endowments, agency and opportunities are not equal to those of men. They are also more dependent for their livelihood on natural resources that are threatened by climate change. In the context of climate change, a “gender analysis” promotes an understanding of the ways that men and women are differently impacted by climate-related hazards and by adopting adaptation and mitigation strategies. This chapter highlights the baseline relation between gender and climate change, position of women and impacts of climate change on women vulnerability and special vulnerable groups and currently existing copping mechanism that practices by women and special vulnerable groups too.

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