To Fight Climate Change, Educate and Empower Girls
Girls and women bear the brunt of climate change impacts. Natural disasters kill more women than men: an estimated 90 percent of those killed in some weather-related disasters were female. The effects of climate change on natural resources can also further exacerbate existing gender inequalities. Girls may be kept out of school to fetch water, as droughts drive them to walk farther and farther to find it. Seeking to stretch scarce household resources, families may marry off their daughters before the legal age and they may become more vulnerable to human trafficking after natural disasters.
Investing in girls’ education can not only reduce girls’ and women’s vulnerability to weather-related disasters, it can also address the underlying gender inequalities that increase their marginalization and exploitation in the face of climate change. In our new report, Three platforms for girls’ education in climate strategies, we argue that investing in education for girls can make the difference between life and death: from developing life-saving skills like literacy and risk assessment, to more complex competencies like the ability to negotiate against early marriage and advocate for their personal rights. It’s time to begin expanding our climate strategies beyond technical solutions, like developing renewable energies, to include sociological solutions, like investing in girls’ education.
CIFOR