Achievements and Hurdles Towards Women’s Access to Climate Justice

Abstract

This chapter discusses whether and how women face challenges in accessing climate justice by clarifying the linkages between environmental changes and human rights to assess the current evolution in the Sustainable Development Agenda (notably SDG5: achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls by 2030). In 2022, the 66th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) addressed as a priority topic “gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls in the context of climate change, environmental and disaster risk reduction policies and programmes”. Women and girls, along with other vulnerable groups, such as indigenous peoples, and local communities, are the ones who “are the most affected by land and resource tenure insecurity and environmental degradation”, and they “disproportionately suffer the effects of biodiversity loss”. Despite achievements towards gender equality, women and girls are disproportionately affected by climate change and environmental degradation; this risk is not related to their biological sex, but rather to gender inequalities and gender norms that are rooted in societies. This chapter aims to demonstrate that it is not only exposure to certain hazards, disasters, pollutants and climate change but also the economic and social situation of women that reduces their ability to recover—from both major disasters caused by chronic emergencies and the chronic emergencies themselves—and perpetuates their marginalization and exclusion by limiting their access to climate justice. Due to the structural inequalities they face, women are hugely impacted by the climate crisis and environmental destruction. While the gender equality gaps in education, political and economic participation, and health are priorities of concern at the global level, climate change may increase violence against women and, more generally, slow violence. Against such a backdrop, the chapter aims to highlight how women can contribute significantly to cocreating resilience and adaptation strategies and solutions, given their understanding of the environment and their role as custodians of ancestral and traditional knowledge. This chapter elaborates on the future of women’s human rights from theoretical and empirical perspectives, shedding light on how to engender climate justice and access to justice, and embrace feminist concerns on matters of exploitation and domination of the environment in parallel to the domination and subordination of women by men in society.

Sections 2 and 2.1 have been written by Sara De Vido; sections 3, 3.1 and 3.2 are by Elisa Fornalé. The introduction and conclusion are the outcome of a common reflection.