While women and girls are bearing the brunt of increasingly brutal climate impacts in the developing world, they also hold the key to taking decisive action against climate change and building resilience against its effects.
That is one of the central messages being delivered by climate justice campaigners at the COP26 climate summit, now into its second week in Glasgow, Scotland.
In a special presidency event Tuesday, speakers made the case that when women and girls are empowered to lead, their communities are more likely to flourish, and are better able to adapt to crises.
“We’ve seen that in all emergencies, whether they’re climate related or conflict related, the vulnerabilities of women get exposed more,” says Chikondi Chabvuta, a climate justice and women’s rights advocate from Malawi, attending COP26 on behalf of the humanitarian organization CARE. “Yet women are also the first responders to climate impacts and they have to be able to carry the burden of their family and their community.”