Questões de Vestibular

         Gender inequality coupled with the climate crisis is one of the greatest challenges of our time. It poses threats to ways of life, livelihoods, health, safety and security for women and girls around the world.

        It is important to acknowledge that the climate crisis is not “gender neutral”. Across the world, women depend more on, yet have less access to, natural resources. In many regions, women bear a disproportionate responsibility for securing food, water, and fuel. Agriculture is the most important employment sector for women in low- and lower-middle income countries. During periods of drought and erratic rainfall, women, as agricultural workers and primary procurers, work harder to secure income and resources for their families. This puts added pressure on girls, who often have to leave school to help their mothers manage the increased burden.

        Climate change is a “threat multiplier”, meaning it escalates social, political and economic tensions in fragile and conflict-affected settings. As climate change drives conflict across the world, women and girls face increased vulnerabilities to all forms of gender-based violence, including conflict-related sexual violence, human trafficking, child marriage, and other forms of violence. 

          Israel and the Palestinian territories are among the most climate vulnerable places on the planet. Whereas worldwide temperatures have increased by an average of 1.1 °C (1.9 °F) since pre-industrial times, in Israel and the surrounding areas, average temperatures have risen by 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) between 1950 and 2017, with a forecasted increase of 4 °C (7.2 °F) by the end of the century. Meanwhile, rising sea levels — projected by Israel’s Environment Ministry to be as high as a meter by 2050, according to a new investigative report by Haaretz newspaper — threaten to obliterate Israel’s famed beaches, damage its desalination plants and undermine the sewage and drainage systems of many coastal cities. In the densely populated Gaza strip, where 2.1 million Palestinians are crammed into 365 square km (141 sq. mi.), sea level rise means a loss of precious real estate as well as saltwater intrusion into an already overtaxed aquifer.

         In an arid region already threatened by desertification and declining precipitation, one would think that the looming climate catastrophe would catalyze a powerful climate movement. Instead, the whole thing is largely an afterthought. In Israel and the Palestinian territories the threat is both existential and more acute. In this contested land, climate action is hamstrung by zerosum battles over territorial, political and historic rights, even as a warming climate exacerbates those tensions.