The Climate Crisis Is Worse for Women. Here’s Why.

Although climate change is a collective problem, its burdens displacement, homelessness, poverty, sexual violence, disease weigh more heavily on women and girls. The worlds leading climate scientists issued a landmark report this month with their : The climate crisis is here, its humanitys fault, and its a catastrophic, planet-threatening problem that will only get worse before it gets better if it gets better. The United Nations report, approved by 195 governments and based on more than 14,000 studies, determined that more than a century of extractive energy use has heated the planet by roughly 1.1 degrees Celsius, or 2 degrees Fahrenheit. Because of existing emissions, additional warming over the next three decades is inevitable. But the report stressed that the offered a narrow and urgent window of opportunity: the chance to fundamentally change our consumption habits and energy usage to avoid even more disastrous warming. Katharine K. Wilkinson, a co-editor of the climate anthology , argues that while climate change is a collective problem, its skewed in its effects on the worlds most vulnerable populations, specifically women and girls. The climate crisis is not gender-equal or gender-neutral, she said. Men have a larger carbon footprint than women, . And the top 1 percent of income earners globally, , are responsible for more carbon emissions than the bottom 50 percent of earners. ., thats roughly at the top compared with 3.5 at the bottom. Yet it is women and girls who bear the burdens in the wake of more frequent climate disasters. Those burdens include displacement as well as increased homelessness, poverty, . In her book, Dr. Wilkinson, who has a doctorate in geography and environment from Oxford, and her co-editor, Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, shine a spotlight on the many women researching, leading, campaigning and writing on climate solutions. We are having trouble retrieving the article content. Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and your Times account, or for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? . Want all of The Times? .