Impacts of Climate Change on Womens Rights

Impacts of Climate mixed bag on Womens RightsImpacts of Climate ex kind on Womens valet de chambre Rights Bangladesh perspective1. IntroductionAt present, the consequences of mood castrate including increased temperature, increased sea level, excessprecipitation, droughts, biodiversity loss, natural disasters and reduced food productionthreaten human rights and social justice. These consequences have brought moreadversely intrusions on low-income countries, which have produced less greenhousegases. In particular, some conquerable groups such as women be more vulnerableto climate swap because they have weaker big businessman to address the challenge of climate limiting. As one of the least-developed countries in the world, Bangladesh facesthe enormous challenges of the global climate change.Women in Bangladesh have been seriously bear on by the climate change, with their human rights under great threat. This essay will analyze how climate change affects the human rights of B angladeshi women and find potential pathways to tackle these problems. It will secure this by firstly giving definitions and basic analyses roughly climate change and human rights. Following this it will look at how Bangladeshi womens rights to life, health and statement were affected by climate change. Finally, it will seek to give effective advice for better response to these impacts.2. Climate diversify and Human Rights2.1 Climate ChangeThere are dickens major definitions of climate change that are widely used. The two different definitions are presented by Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). According to FCCC(1992) as cited by Pielke (2004), FCCC that focused on international policy, described climate change as a change of climate that is attri plainlyed directly or indirectly to human activity, that alters the composition of the global atmosphere, and that is in addition to natural climate disagreement over comparable time periods. On the other hand, IPCC that focused on scientific assessments defined climate change as a change in the state of the climate that fuel be identified (e.g., by using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties, and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer(Qin, Stocker & IPCC, 2013 p123-125). It is clear that IPCC give climate change a broader definition than FCCC. On the ground of FCCC definition,the reduction of vulnerability can non be realized notwithstanding though greenhouse gasemissions. But according to IPCC definition, there are some measures includingadaption policies effective to address ecological or societal vulnerabilitybrought by climate change. In this paper, both of this will be taken intoconsider.2.2 Human RightsFacts and studies have shown thatclimate change poses a great challenge to human rights issues. Human rights arethe inherent rights of every individual, regardl ess of our nationality, placeof residence, sex, ethnicity, religion, language or any other status (AriellaAzoulay,2015). As United Nations (n.d.) have noted, human rights include theright to life and liberty, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of opinionand expression, the right to work and education, and many more. It is worthmentioning that the concept of human rights does not reside at the theoreticallevel, but is described and cling toed by International human rights law (IHRL)and some national laws. For example, in Britain the Human Rights Act 1998 wasintroduced to protect human rights.As womens human rights aregaining increasing attention in the context of advocating gender equality, someresearch and related institutions begin to focus on the impact of climatechange on womens human rights and do some work to help local women in theclimatic vulnerable areas.3. Climate Changes Effects on Womens Human Rights in BangladeshBangladesh is one of the countries mostlikely to s uffer adverse impacts from climate change. This is mainly influencedby two factors, one of which is its special geographical location and the otheris its social and economic underdevelopment. The total land area in Bangladesh is147,570 square kilometers, including 80% of the floodplains. As a result,during the rainy season, most parts of the country (except the NorthwestHighlands) are prone to flooding. Saleemul Huq2001comparedBangladesh with the Netherlands, indicating that geographical location is notthe only reason why Bangladesh is affected by severe climate change. Bangladeshand the Netherlands are both low-lying deltaic countries, but the Netherlands possessesenough financial and scientific capacity to build higher seawalls for protectingits citizens against natural disasters, but Bangladesh cannot.3.1 Effect of Climate Change on the Right to Life Climate change has caused frequent naturaldisasters in Bangladesh. Gender issues have always been a marginalized topic inthe contex t of climate change, but we can still find some gender-related datain related climate change studies. Women are less able to escape from naturaldisasters. For example, during the 1991 Bangladesh Cyclone, the mortality rate ofwomen was five times higher than that of men among the 20-44 age group(UNEP,2005).The reasons why there was a such difference are as follows. First, there is animbalance of information between men and women in Bangladesh. Men cancommunicate with each other in public places for access to information, whilewomen are mostly at home, unable to obtain timely and useful warning messages. Secondly,most Bangladeshi women lack the skills to float or climb trees, and theirdresses are not conducive to their escape from the disaster. In addition, it ismore difficult for women to get rescuing resources to deal with damage and lossfrom extreme live on events because of the long-standing social bias. In otherwords, the gender inequality in Bangladesh society contributes to t hevulnerability of local women.3.2 Effect of Climate Change on the Right to healthAs a result of climate change, womens workhas become even more dangerous and difficult in the society of Bangladesh. Inmost light communities, getting drinking water for their families is theresponsibility for women, just as Bangladesh. Climate change causes problems ofdrought and salinization of water in Bangladesh (Aguilar Revelo, 2009). Womenin families have to walk a long distance to obtain water resources, whichconsumes a large amount of their time and leads to high risks of injury and evendeath in the process.Climate change have driven child marriagerisks in Bangladesh, with womens right to health damaged. Natural disasters suchas floods and droughts aroused by climate change have made thousands of people becomedisplaced and lose their financial sources (e.g. crops). In this hopeless situation,many parents have to marry their young daughtersoff. Girls Not Brides (2017) noted that Bangladesh alre ady had one of highestrates of child marriage in the world at 52%. Around 30% of girls in Bangladeshare married before their fifteenth birthday. earliest marriages make these girls morevulnerable to domestic violence, and pregnancy at a young age is harmful forwomens health.3.3 Effect of Climate Change on the Right to EducationHigh temperatures, droughts and floods havemade farmers in rural areas lose their land, crops and livestock, then thesepeople have to migrate from villages to the so-called climate change refugesinDhaka. Education is free in rural Bangladesh, while it is not free in Dhaka (Jabeen,2014). In the face of high information fees and livingcosts, parents choose to let the girls give up education. Gender bias inBangladesh society also contributes to the choice. Families often prefer togive boys the limited educational opportunities and the girls should make an effortfor boys. Also, gathering water and producing cropsbecome increasingly difficult due to extreme weath er in Bangladesh so that girlshave to stay at home to share the housework. It becomes more and more difficultfor local women to participate in decision- qualification process of climate changepolicy and measures due to lack of education. As a result, many policies andmeasures for dealing with climate change are formulated almost entirely by menand can not accurately pander the demands of women.4. Possible SolutionsProtectingwomens human rights from climate change needs transboundary cooperationincluding international institutions, local government, NGOs. There are somesuggestions to address the issue and to modify womens human rights in thecontext of the climate change in Bangladesh.First, womensempowerment in the decision-making process is of vital importance. Actually, thisconcept has been clearly verbalise in some policies or agreements, but it stillfaces many challenges in its practical application. For example,The Paris Agreementexplicitly requires that gender equality and w omens empowermentshould be taken into account in addressing climate change, and genderdifferences should be considered in actions and capacity building to addressclimate change(Guiot,2016). However, inpoor countries, womens empowerment is not easy to realize in physical exertion becauseof social prejudices and the low educational level of women. For betterempowerment, local governments should provide education subsidies or freeeducation for these climate refugees. Relevant policies should be introduced todemand that all children including girls receive basic education. Compulsoryeducation gives girls more employment opportunities and enables them to participatein the stages of social decision-making, making their voices heard in the areaof addressing climate change issue. Moreover, womens education optimizes thedemographic structure andthus has a positive impact on climate change. Thiscreates a righteous circle.Secondly, theinfrastructure should be improved. As mentioned earlier, water is greatlyaffected by climate change, and womens access to water becomes more difficultand vulnerable. It seems impossible to change this civilization in Bangladesh thatwomen should get water for their families, but infrastructure projects can beimplemented in local area to help them get watereasier.For example, localgovernments, corporations or international organizations can invest money andtechnology to establish water factories to enable local residents to use cleantap water directly. In addition, social organization of the roads and schools in localvillages can also reduce the time and distance to go to school. As a result,the way of getting water becomes salutary and women can have more time foreducation.Finally, womens access to early warning informationand the basic skills to deal with disasters should be improved. For example, thelocal government and other non-governmental organizations can provide localwomen with free disaster-resistant training. Considering the l ow-leveleducation of local women, training materials should be designed easy tounderstand. And a special information transmission team up including female shouldbe set up to timely transmit important information to women groups and reflectthe demands of women.5. Conclusion Women in Bangladesh is one of the mostvulnerable groups when it comes to the impact of climate change. With theimpact of climate change, women not only need to spend more time in domesticwork, but also becomes more vulnerable in the process. Climate change hasaggravated the problem of poverty, leading to the emergence of dropouts andchild marriages. In fact, womens rights to life, health and education havebeen adversely affected by climate change.Fortunately, more and more agencies andresearchers have been aware of this issue and done some related research. Theseresearch outcomes have been gradually affecting the governments policies aboutclimate change. However, increasing the human rights of women in Bangladesh will require more efforts from multiple agencies. The essay also provides somepossible ways in practice to deal with the problem, including womensempowerment in decision-making process, constructing tap water factories,improving local roads, disaster prevention training for women. 6. References1 Qin D, Stocker T.& Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. working(a) Group I. 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