Climate Change: Why Girls Count
On the 5th of June every year over 100 countries celebrate World Environment Day; a day set aside by the United Nations (UN) to encourage people to take action towards protecting our environment – a resource that has been exploited to the point of abuse. One of the biggest environmental issues facing the world today is climate change and the continual and continuous effect of this is poverty. Clearly poor people will find it harder to survive, however, there’s an even more vulnerable but less obvious subgroup – women. This is how:
Climate change causes;
Increase in natural disasters such as floods
Increased disease vectors which means more malaria and new diseases entirely
Increased heatwaves meaning increased prevalence of meningitis, etc.
Drought and desertification causing hunger, water scarcity, possible conflict due to migration and other issues related to internally displaced persons
Reduced rainfall causing low crop yield and consequently increased food prices
Apart from low-income families/communities, women are most likely to bear the brunt because climate change breeds poverty and poverty is sexist;
photo credit: Rod Waddington