October 2021
Rapporteur: Suhasini Udayakumar
About the speaker
Dr Asha Hans is the founder of Sansristi and the Executive Vice President of the Shanta Memorial Rehabilitation Centre. She has had a long and illustrious academic career at Utkal University and published prolifically on international relations and South Asian politics. She has been a long-standing and active member of the Pakistan India People’s Forum for Peace and Democracy. Dr Hans’ most recent publication is Engendering Climate Change: Lessons from South Asia (Routledge 2021) co-edited with Nitya Rao, Anjal Prakash and Amrita Patel.
Context
Across the planet, climate change is altering risk patterns and several factors interact to increasingly expose people to natural hazards. Even as researchers unpack women’s vulnerability to climate change, the emerging “securitisation” of climate is being perceived as a potential cause for global instability and conflict. Feminists need to explore and formulate a response to this new climate-“securitisation.”
Climate Change within the Gender Discourse
Dr Hans states that climate change is missing from the gender discourse despite being one of the world’s most pressing issues. In fact, climate change has given rise to a new kind of colonialism and a strengthening of militarization. Over the course of the Gender Talk, Dr Hans hopes to discuss why and how has this happened.
Frameworks for Climate Change
Dr Hans lays out the frameworks for climate change that currently exist in the world. The first is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which acts as a space for negotiation for all member states. The UNFCCC has been active since 1994 but only in 2014 did it recognise gender as an important aspect of climate change.
Dr Hans reflects that ground realities, issues, and activism aren’t reflected in these conventions. Although women bear the brunt of climate change, the gender component is missed out from the discourse because there are barely any women present at the conventions to discuss it. For example, the rapid creation of the Mahanadi delta in India has displaced indigenous people, many of them women, to new territories. But international relations prefer that no migration occur, ignoring the fact that climate change leaves people with no choice.
The second framework for climate change is Resolution 2242, which is part of the UN Security Council 1325 for Women, Peace and Security (WPS). 1325, celebrated for its sturdy pillars, did not include climate change on its agenda until 2015 and is yet to be mainstreamed, having but one paragraph to its name in the framework.
How do women suffer due to climate change?
Climate change has led to a new kind of colonialism in critically affected areas. The melting of the Arctic, for example, has led to world powers descending on the area for resources. The Arctic is divided among many countries such as the US, China, Russia, Norway, and Canada, which have all hastened to extract valuable resources such as minerals. The indigenous women in the Arctic suffer from the consequent extraction politics and imperialism.
Around 2007, countries around the world announced that climate change was affecting their defence bases. This developed a new agenda, which led to large sums of money being pumped in to protect these bases. Forgotten was the fact that continued militarization devastates women in conflict areas through war crimes such as rape, abduction, and more.
How do we move forward?
Dr Hans talks about CEDAW recommendations on WPS and climate change, which are supposed to be mandatory but are hardly followed by member states. These world conventions highlight issues but are not committed to changing mindsets, without which change is simply not possible. The importance of the UN has decreased over time and it is not a good sign that member states do not take its values and opinions seriously.
Dr Hans shares the words of Mia Mottley, the Prime Minister of Barbados at a UN General Assembly meeting: one of the greatest barriers in WPS is the lack of belief and trust in the UN’s vision. Without that, where does one go from here? 100 billion USD dedicated to climate finance is not all that is required. What is of utmost urgency is global moral strategic leadership. How many more disasters is the world to witness? How many more women of colour are to be attacked? World leaders and organisations offer kind words but do not demonstrate the goodwill to distribute the surplus resources harboured by the one per cent. The vulnerable and the marginal pay the price for this greed.
Dr Hans concludes that we need to transfigure the concept of securitisation into that of human security. We must become more intersectional in the gender and climate change discourse, paying special attention to women with disabilities and transwomen, who suffer even more disproportionately due to climate change.
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