It is widely recognized that industrialized countries are primarily responsible for GHG emissions. What is less clear is whether men share a similar responsibility for generating greater emissions than women, and whether or not this is even relevant. While identifying developed countries as the primary emitters is more widely accepted, determining gendered emissions patterns is much more complicated. Furthermore, researchers and practitioners have taken different positions on whether there is anything to be gained from a focus on this area.
Despite the preliminary work that has been done to identify gendered emission patterns, some argue that there is little to be gained from analyzing whether men or women bear primary responsibility for emissions, and assert that it is more urgent to generate diverse analyses to identify social, political and planning conditions – in different regions and countries – that affect the possible reduction of emissions.96
On the other hand, some contend that gender implications are related to emissions. A number of preliminary studies made in Europe, including one promoted by the government of Sweden,97 have investigated the differences between the “ecological footprint”98 of women and men of different socio-economic levels, including their lifestyles and their resulting contributions to GHG emissions. One study, for example,
99 Women’s Environmental Network and National Federation of Women’s Institutes, 2007.
100 See WECF: www.wecf.eu LIFE: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/life/GENANET: http://ww.genanet.de/index. php?id=2&L=1
101 IPPC, 2007.
analyses the place of gender in transport – an important sector in mitigation strategies – and how emissions related to transport have a clear gender differentiation. The study notes that present transport systems have been designed with a stereotypical view of “middle-aged, full-time working men,” while neglecting women’s much higher dependency on public transport. For work and recreation, women travel by car less frequently and over shorter distances, use smaller cars with fuel-saving technologies, and travel by air much less often than men. Thus, they contend that a greater proportion of emissions can be attributed to male activity.
Similarly, in Great Britain in 2007, a group of organizations launched the “Women’s Manifesto on Climate Change” in which they suggested that the responsibility for emissions sometimes seems to be linked to the division of work according to gender, economic power and men’s and women’s different consumption and recreation habits.99 The survey which led to the publication showed that 80% of the women interviewed were concerned about climate change, and the Manifesto asks the British Government to take environmental mitigation and protection measures in a way that will ensure gender equality and recognize that existing inequality, both in developed and in less developed countries, makes it difficult to promote work on climate change.
A workshop held in Montreal in 2005, organized by Women in Europe for a Common Future (WECF), the Financial Instrument for the Environment of the European Union (LIFE), and the Gender, Environment and Sustainability Network (GENANET), also identified the need for gender-disaggregated data related to causes of climate change, such as energy consumption/contributions to GHG emissions and consumption patterns, and better information on the role of politics in technologies, infrastructure and differentiated impact.100
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) mentions various technologies and practices that may mitigate the GHGs produced by different sectors.101 The strategies include renewable energy resources (water, solar, wind, geothermal), the use of biomass, the use of first- and second-generation biofuels, improved management of land used for crops or for livestock, restoring degraded peat bogs, improved cultivation techniques, aforestation, reforestation, forest management, the reduction of deforestation, and the use of bioenergy, among others.
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102 The Equilibrium Fund, 2007. 103 Agarwal, 2002.
104 IUCN, 2007.
105 Bala et al; Mahli et al, 2002.
Carbon capture, fixing or sequestration
Carbon capture, fixing or sequestration measures are intended to increase storage of GHGs by means of “sinks”; sustainable agriculture, forestry (forestation, reducing deforestation and reforestation) and the conservation of nature may provide some means of increasing the storage capacity of these gases. Unlike other mitigation strategies, however, these actions are primarily directed at the less developed countries, many of which have ecosystems, such as forests, mangroves and peat bogs, and other habitats, that fix or capture carbon.
There are many examples that demonstrate how women have become involved in reforestation, aforestation, regenerating ecosystems and preventing deforestation, and it is essential to emphasize the significant role women play in these strategies used to preserve and increase carbon sinks. For example, women in Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras have planted 400,000 maya nut trees (Brosimum aliscastrum) since 2001 as part of a project supported by the Equilibrium Fund. This project not only increases the women’s food sources, but also provides potential for those women to benefit from climate change finance, as the Equilibrium Fund is trying to participate in carbon trading with the United States and Europe. Such specific projects may improve women’s quality of life and, at the same time, serve as climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies.102
Other cases have shown the negative consequences of excluding women or ignoring their needs. For example, various projects in India and Nepal faced serious problems in implementing their strategies for reforestation and the protection of forests and reserves because they did not have a gender perspective. Many of the objectives of these projects could not be met because the projects did not recognize that, needing firewood for cooking, women enter the reserves at night or exploit the forests in neighbouring regions. Forest rangers do not know how to stop the women from entering the reserves for fear that they will be accused of rape, and the project formulators failed to consider women’s knowledge women about how to monitor deforestation or implement more effective reforestation strategies.103