Climate change and gender beyond ‘women and girls’
Gender is a theme for the UK’s Presidency Programme for COP26, recognising that women and girls are among those worse impacted by climate change. However, Drs Neil Crawford and Katie McQuaid argue that we need to take a much broader view of gender and social inclusion if we are to avoid excluding other extremely climate vulnerable groups, such as LGBTQ+ and disabled people, and the displaced.
For this year’s UN Climate Convention Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, the United Kingdom’s Presidency Programme has outlined nine themes, one of which is gender.
What ‘gender’ appears to evoke in this context is the ‘full and meaningful participation of women and girls’, echoing broader efforts to apply a gender lens in the build-up to COP26. The Presidency Programme follows a long-line of climate policies and practices that frequently equate gender solely with women and girls, particularly those that are also poor and living in rural areas. While full inclusion of women and girls in the climate programme is critical, such a narrow focus is at risk of excluding others who are extremely vulnerable to climate and environmental injustices due to their gender, sexuality, age, disability, or those who have been displaced. We must better understand how different factors of identity intersect together to shape our abilities to respond to climate change. Diversity and social inclusion must be given full consideration if we are to reach the most vulnerable and disadvantaged communities.
Through the GENERATE project we are working to transform such approaches to gender and climate change and embed diversity at the heart of climate actions. Through recognising and embracing diversity and creating space for marginalised groups and wider communities to share experiences and create new actions without domination or oppression, we invite policymakers and stakeholders to give long overdue attention to, among others, the experiences, vulnerabilities, and knowledge(s) of LGBTQ+ people.
LGBTQ+ people often experience pronounced climate injustices
For decades we have seen time and again where there are instances of racial or class inequality, there are often issues of environmental inequalities; including greater exposure to disasters, pollution, heat stress, and the fast and slow impacts of climate change (Pellow 2017). Researchers and activists concerned with environmental justice have, however, tended to focus mostly on these issues of race and class. Other intersections of inequality have garnered considerably less attention, including the environmental (in)justice issues experienced by LGBTQ+ people.
From what we know so far, LGBTQ+ communities often have different or pronounced injustices relating to climate change and environmental issues. Imagine a working class neighbourhood of an Indonesian city, one which has just suffered the worst floods in a five year cycle, and the emergency shelters and relief centres are quickly set up. While urban residents flee the rising waters, LGBTQ+ individuals tell us they choose to remain in their houses, they are not welcome in the shelters, a common issue in many other humanitarian settings which are often heavily gender, binary, and ‘family’ focused. Some other residents manage to travel to stay with extended family in other neighbourhoods, but many in the LGBTQ+ community were rejected by their families on the basis of their sexuality and gender identity and expression. Many praise the swimming lessons given to women and girls, but for transgender women, such routes to survival are not open. In many cases LGBTQ+ people are excluded from disaster preparations, briefings and early response systems, and despite a high proportion reliant on precarious livelihoods, further excluded from emergency relief. Responses to climate change and disasters must urgently recognise these gaps and work with marginalised groups to reclaim their space and rights within climate planning.
Social exclusion in East Africa exposes LGBTQ+ and others to climate impacts
We spoke with Nicholas*, an East African transgender activist and resettled refugee currently living in North America, about his experiences and thoughts on climate and environmental justice. He describes a range of environmental challenges that exist in large cities in East Africa, from the consequences of increasing temperatures and rainfall, to issues of pollution of water supplies and accumulation of single-use plastic. He describes the way in which the city of Kampala, the capital of Uganda, has a marked difference between wealthy, green, and clean neighbourhoods, and poorer areas with issues of waste and homes vulnerable to shifting weather conditions. Facing high levels of socio-cultural stigma, LGBTQ+ people are systemically excluded from much of the country’s labour market, safe and secure housing, and many forms of traditional social support open to other members of the urban population (including churches, mosques, extended family and clan networks). This often means that LGBTQ+ people are much more likely to live in these more vulnerable neighbourhoods and consequently be exposed to greater environmental difficulties, with the exception of the cities’ more ‘elite’ and internationally-recognised LGBTQ+ activists.
Nicholas explains that similar issues are faced by the city’s large population of urban refugees and asylum-seekers, who can similarly be bound to the more environmentally exposed areas of the city and often locate themselves near to the offices of organisations that work with displaced people. Finally, Nicholas highlights the vulnerabilities of people living with disabilities in Kampala, many of whom are homeless, sleeping in the shade of commercial buildings at night, and must navigate a physical landscape almost fully inaccessible for those with limited mobility. They are acutely exposed to issues of dust, heat, and rain — all of which are becoming more pronounced as global temperatures rise.
Nicholas’ story highlights the various forms of environmental injustice faced by many in urban areas, and how these are exacerbated by being a member of a particularly marginalised community, such as LGBTQ+ people in Uganda. He speaks of his own experiences and those of the communities he works for and with, but his experiences chime with other accounts.
It speaks to Greta Gaard’s suggestion, that while ‘environmental racism’ and ‘environmental classism’ may be fairly well-known in some circles, the analytical categories of ‘environmental heterosexism’ or ‘environmental ableism’ are rarely considered or given due attention. These are underexplored issues which the GENERATE project is helping to address, as we develop tools for understanding and addressing the intersecting inequalities produced and exacerbated by climate change. We must expand our mainstreaming of ‘gender’ within climate change discourse to incorporate sexual, migrant, environmental, social and racial justice if we are to ensure our climate actions can benefit everyone.
Climate change is an immediate challenge for many people in cities like Kampala and Jakarta, but the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s recent “code red for humanity” report paints a potentially grave future. It is therefore more critical than ever that climate actions and planning embed principles of diversity and inclusion at all stages.
What is needed: wider gender and social inclusion
As the Conference of the Parties comes come together in this, their 26th meeting, we must push for a broader and more nuanced view of gender and social inclusion when talking about and responding to climate change. There is a need for approaches that recognise and can respond to the broad diversity of experiences of climate change, and the inequalities embedded in our political, social and physical landscapes.
We must work with policy leaders and planners to adopt an intersectional approach to climate change. It is welcome to see more calls for embedding gender, justice and intersectionality in responses to climate change, but we must avoid tendencies to neglect sexuality or think in binary terms of “poor men and women, young and old”. Climate planners must consider that many individuals face neglect or active systemic exclusion by Government-led assistance and programming, including in the 69 countries that have laws that criminalise homosexuality, many of whom who are also at the forefront of the climate emergency.
Special thought and action must be given to how these people are reached to ensure no-one is left behind. The views, experiences, and understandings of LGBTQ+ people must be considered, as well as others historically excluded and neglected by a ‘gender discourse’ that has an all-too-often narrow scope. We must also think about gender and sexuality in relation to other factors which will directly shape a person’s ability to respond — and adapt to — experiences of climate change, such as their citizenship (or lack thereof), migratory status, age, or if they are living with a disability. Only through adopting such an intersectional approach can we achieve a climate just future.
* name changed
Further information
GENERATE is undertaking a systematic and arts-based exploration of the ‘gender-age-urban’ interface of climate change. It will deliver critical new evidence on how gendered, sexualised and generational patterns and structures of exclusion can increase urban residents’ vulnerability to climate change. Find out more on the GENERATE project website.
Visit University of Leeds at COP26 for an overview of what Leeds is doing for COP26, including events, resources, and links to COP26 Universities Network briefings.
This blog is part of a climate action series ahead of COP26, find others at Policy Leeds blog.
Feature image editorial credit: iain statham / Shutterstock.com
