Gender Justice and Climate Justice: Building women’s economic and political agency in times of climate change

Abstract

Socio-economically vulnerable people, and women in particular, are generally those most impacted by global climate change (because of their gendered/racialized socio-economic roles and often their geographic location). The same people tend to be the least-equipped to deal with those impacts (because of their weak economic and political position). Women, who are usually unpaid or underpaid for their work, have special contributions to make towards climate change adaptation because of gendered differences in positional knowledge of ecological and water-related conditions. Community-based education, organizing, and alliances with labour unions and civil society groups are fundamental to making it possible for this knowledge to be shared and utilized, through equitable democratic participation by marginalized people, especially women.