The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Declaration on the world state of climate¹ was recently published, given its scientific rigor this statement contains reliable information in the matter. The report indicates that 2019 was the second warmest year for which data has been available since instrumental measurements were made, this had already been announced preliminarily at the annual meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) known as COP25 last December.

Other not very encouraging data included in the report:

• The period 2015-2019 comprises the five warmest years on record.
• The period from 2010 to 2019 has been the warmest decade ever recorded.
• Since in the 1980s, each new decade has been warmer than all previous ones.
• The year 2019 ended with an average global temperature of 1.1 ° C above estimated pre-industrial levels.

It can be inferred that we are very far from meeting the objectives of the Paris Climate Agreement, whose main objective is to limit global temperatures below 2 ° C. Also, by 2020 it seeks to provide a fund by 2020 to help the most vulnerable countries to face climate change.

There is no doubt that climate change is the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced. By 2020, millions of people have already been affected by accelerated change, land degradation and loss of biodiversity.

As can be seen, not limiting warming to less than 2 ° C could make irreversible changes in the climate system and trigger catastrophic consequences. The impacts of climate change have the potential to increase vulnerability and threaten the livelihoods of millions of poor people around the world, many of whom already face exposure to a variety of challenges, including natural disasters, hunger, susceptibility to disease outbreaks and loss of livelihoods.

Evidence shows that women and girls are one of the groups most affected by the climate crisis. The gender approach emphasizes visualizing the sociocultural differences that deny and restrict the women’s rights that in climate change contexts can increase and decrease development opportunities for the 50% of the world’s population that is made up of women.

«CLIMATE CHANGE DOES NOT AFFECT EVERYONE EQUALLY»

There is a causal interrelation between climate change and gender that we should reflect on: on the one hand, climate change tends to exacerbate existing gender inequalities; but also gender inequalities lead to the negative impacts women face to be greater. Perspectives, responses and impacts related to extreme environmental phenomena are perceived differently between men and women, as well as both having different social responsibilities, vulnerabilities and capacities to face changes and adjustments.

Examples of impacts:

• Climate change carries with it, additional burdens in the provision of elementary resources such as the supply of water and firewood, these tasks are carried out mostly by women and girls.
• In times of catastrophes, the responsibility of feeding the family, especially girls and boys, as well as providing essential daily items, is largely carried out by women.
• Women are not vulnerable because they are “naturally weaker”, but the conditions of vulnerability that men and women are different due to their gender condition. A great majority of women live in conditions of social exclusion that are expressed in: cultural limitations to move outside the domestic space, less access to information in case of threat, less access to early warning systems and forecasts of climate variability, as well as difficulties to participate in training processes.