By Simphiwe Ngwenya
The Presidential Climate Commission (PCC) has been tasked with driving the Just Transition for the country to ensure a low-carbon and climate-resilient future.
This task heralded the first-ever Just Transition Framework in a developing country, making South Africa a first-mover once again.
As the PCC, we acknowledge that our work broadly and the Just Transition framework inadequately addressed the issue of gender inequalities and this oversight has been raised in various platforms by stakeholders. It is in this context that the issue and need for gender equity must be prioritised in further planning processes in the Just Transition process and specifically in the implementation thereof.
The PCC recently hosted a webinar on Gender and Social Inclusion in the Just Transition. Validating the sentiment expressed by President Cyril Ramapahosa in his address on National Women’s Day, the speakers at this webinar bemoaned our pathetic performance as a country in addressing gender equality.
This poor track record was an alarm bell that we must not repeat the same mundane performance as we transition to a low-carbon economy.
As we set voyage on a no-return path to transition to a low-carbon and climate-resilient society we need to forthrightly state that our hamstrung remains the triple challenges of unemployment, poverty and inequality manifesting themselves more deeply when examined through the gender lens.
Climate change exacerbates existing inequalities and increases the vulnerability of women and under-represented populations to gender-based violence (GBV), poverty, starvation and other women’s experiences of vulnerability and adaptation to climate-related impacts is significantly influenced these changes in addition to the cultural, socio-political, gendered, racial and other significant factors of power relations.
As women fight and reclaim their pedestal in the Just Transition discourse, their climate impact experiences vary witnessed by the traditional responses which often come at their expense and disregarding their plight and their daily lives.
This can improve climate adaptation and mitigation, and is essential to achieving more effective, equitable, and sustainable outcomes. It is therefore crucial that women participate equally in the development and implementation of climate-change-related policies and programmes.
There is a growing understanding that the ability of communities and households to adapt to the impacts of climate change is interlinked with the socio-economic factors. Even more so where gender disparities and social and economic justice are not addressed.
Social expectations, roles, status, and economic power of men and women affect and are affected differently by climate change.
Understanding these differences will improve actions taken to reduce the vulnerability women and combat climate change particular in a country like were women are primary care givers, provide food security, water, health care and other resources.
It is important to recognise that climate change mitigation and adaptation will leave some behind, resulting in an unjust transition, unless we anticipate all the possible risks such as health, unemployment, climate related, to ensure that gender equality and equity remains a cross cutting theme for a Just Transition.
The fact remains that women continue to face exclusion, discrimination and disproportionate exposure to socio-economic vulnerabilities as well as carrying the burden of caring, providing and supporting the home. This is further exacerbated in South Africa, the most unequal country in the world, that also grapples with gender inequality and GBV.
We know the issues; the critical question is how to radically change and adapt. In mind we need to address questions such as what specific actions should be included in the implementation plan that promote gender equality.
Firstly, how can the participation of women in climate action be improved and, secondly, what interventions and steps are required to ensure gender inequality is addressed and main-streamed, and how do we elevate and empower women as climate leaders?
The International Panel on Climate Change found that gender inequalities are further exacerbated by climate-related threats, and they result in higher workloads for women, occupational hazards indoors and outdoors, psychological, and emotional stress, and higher mortality compared to men.
Gender inequality hampers women’s ability and potential to be actors of climate action. These gender inequalities – access to and control over resources, education and information, equal rights, and access to decision-making processes – define what women and men can do and cannot do in a particular context of climate change.
These factors – and many more – mean that as climate change intensifies, women will struggle the most. In fact, the Paris climate agreement includes specific provisions to ensure women receive support to cope with the hazards of climate change.
While the future seems daunting, it is not all doom and gloom. Women are showing remarkable resilience around the world and are leading climate action movements, championing clean sources of energy, and building alternative models of community that focus on sustainability and cooperation.
Climate change is the cardinal challenge of our time, and it is our responsibility to create resilient communities, and to do so in a way that ensures inequalities are not perpetuated, with everyone having a share of voice and action in the sustainable future of their communities, just as we cannot have discussions on how to respond to climate change or disasters in communities, without ensuring that women have a seat at the table.
An engendered just transition and climate-resilient future will not only reduce gender inequality, but also elevate and empower women as climate leaders.
Simphiwe Ngwenya is the Project Manager – Mitigation Presidential Climate Commission.
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