Relevant Links
Kampala — Women are the most affected by the effects of climate change, the latest United Nations Population report has revealed.
The 2009 State of the World report released in London yesterday said even though women bear the disproportionate burden of climate change, their plight has largely been overlooked especially in developing countries.
Some of the climate change effects include rising sea levels, droughts, melting glaciers and extreme weather conditions.
Uganda has been particularly affected by drought.
"Poor women in poor countries are among the hardest hit by climate change, even though they contributed the least to it," said the United Nations Population Fund Executive Director, Ms Thoraya Ahmed Obaid.
"The poor are especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change, and the majority of the 1.5 billion people living on $1 a day or less are women," she added.
Ms Obaid said the poor are more likely to depend on agriculture for a living and therefore risk going hungry or losing their livelihoods when droughts strike, rains become unpredictable and hurricanes move with unprecedented force.
She added that the poor tend to live in areas vulnerable to floods, rising seas and storms.
In Uganda majority of the over 70 per cent people who are engaged in agriculture are women who practice it at subsistence level.
Way forward
The report shows that the fight against climate change is more likely to be successful if policies, programmes and treaties take into account the needs, rights and potential of women.
It reveals that women are more likely than men to die in natural disasters--including those related to extreme weather--with this gap most pronounced where incomes are low and status differences between men and women are high.
The report shows that investments that empower women and girls--particularly education and health--bolster economic development and reduce poverty and have a beneficial impact on climate.
Comments 1 to 2 of 2 Post a comment
This independently verified clean energy technology produces electricity at the astonishingly low cost of 1 cent per kilowatt hour. As reported by both CNN and the New York Times:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1iqa0dSJO0
Check out above link to a 2 and a half minute youtube video of a CNN report. What are the odds that the independent testimony below is fraudulent (not bloody likely unless you are a paranoid conspiracy theorist)? Here is a silver bullet technology: clean cheap and abundant energy.
In a joint statement, Dr. K.V. Ramanujachary, Rowan University Meritorious Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Dr. Amos Mugweru, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, and Dr. Peter Jansson P.E., Associate Professor of Engineering said, "In independent tests conducted over the past three months involving 10 solid fuels made by us from commercially-available chemicals, our team of engineering and chemistry professors, staff, and students at Rowan University has independently and consistently generated energy in excesses ranging from 1.2 times to 6.5 times the maximum theoretical heat available through known chemical reactions."
Also, check out this article: http://www.nytimes.com/external/venturebeat/2008/10/21/21venturebeat-blackl ight-power-bolsters-its-impossible-cla-99377.html
Brad Arnold St Louis Park, MN, USA dobermanmacleod@gmail.com www.myspace.com/dobermanmacleod
It is time for a delegation of prominent African women meet with Western female heads of state to present this information and urge -- demand -- immediate internationally-binding environment laws to protect women in rich and poor countries alike. Only women can lead effort. And there are many of female heads of state such as, to name a few, Irish President Mary McAleese, Finland President Tarja Halonen, German Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel, Chile's President Michelle Bachelet Jeria, India's President Pratibha Patil, Argentina's President Cristina E. Fernández de Kirchner, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. There are several others, not including lesser but globally influential women like Hilary Clinton and even former USA vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Such a meeting (conference) is essential since next month's global environment conference in Copenhagen, and led mostly by men, is very unlikely to achieve anything to help the planet and women in poor countries.