---
title: "Women in climate change"
chunk: 2/15
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_climate_change"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:51:30.301743+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

== Arguments for women in science and climate change ==
It is argued that when women are overlooked as scholars and decision makers the world fails to take advantage of its full human capacity, which is needed for issues as urgent as climate change. Women may also take more collaborative approaches, especially in negotiations, and may pay more attention to disadvantaged groups and to the natural environment.
Gender has become an issue because of women's essential roles in managing resources such as water, forests and energy and as women lead fights for environmental protection.
A general concern has been expressed about the need to highlight the work of women and to include more women in major committees in order to provide gender balance, social justice, and inspiration to young women to enter careers in science.  This reflects more general arguments about the barriers to women's advancement and the need for women to "Lean in" to leadership positions.
Another argument focuses on the effects climate change on reproductive health. It was not until recently that these issues were discovered and brought to light however, they are currently affecting many women all around the world and in turn will eventually have population effects. The pollutants and toxic chemicals that in air, food, and ecosystems are causing lots of health issues. Developing countries are currently suffering the most as they tend to be the waste dump sites from more developed countries as they are seen as more disposable. Not only can these pollutants cause infertility, they can create issues with formation of babies and the overall weight and health as well as cause miscarriages. Not only is our future generation suffering the consequences the mothers of these children are suffering health issues. This is another important reason why women should be brought into the climate change discussion.

== Women and international climate policy ==
The outcome document of the Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development - the Future we Want - recognized the need to remove barriers to the full and equal participation of women in decision making and management and the need to increase women in leadership positions. A report prepared by UN Women, the Mary Robinson Foundation - Climate Justice, the Global Gender and Climate Alliance and the UNFCCC recognizes the structural inequalities that impede the representation of women in climate science, negotiations and policies and recommends greater gender balance in the UNFCCC and national delegations.  The report argues that the "challenges of climate change cannot be solved without empowering women" and that women have been marginalized in international negotiations. It reports data that show weak representation of women in the institutions of the UNFCCC including the Adaptation Committee (25%), the GEF Council (19%) and the Expert Group (15%) and that overall women constitute less than 20% of delegation heads and less than 30% of delegation members at UNFCCC conferences.

== The Manthropocene ==
A call for international science to pay greater attention to the inclusion of women scholars was made by Kate Raworth and then in her article "Must the Anthropocene be the Manthropocene?" She pointed out that the working group of 36 scientists and scholars who convened in Berlin in 2014 to begin assessing evidence humanity was entering a new epoch, the Anthropocene, was composed almost entirely of men.  She stated: "Leading scientists may have the intellect to recognize that our planetary era is dominated by human activity, but they still seem oblivious to the fact that their own intellectual deliberations are bizarrely dominated by white northern male voices".