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Women in Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation

Engr (Ms) Reba PaulExecutive Secretary, Bangladesh Water Partnership

& Joint Secretary and Gender Coordinator of Bangladesh Renewable Energy Society (BRES)

USAID-SARI Energy SAWIE Executive Exchange on Efficient Energy Management and Renewable Energy

Organised by United States Energy Association (USEA)

May 12-20 May, 2009

Outline of presentation

• Causes of climate change and its linkage with energy uses.• Impacts of climate change on women particularly related to

energy.• Women’s role in Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation• Related Policy and development issues• Global Actions• Way Forward

Causes of climate change and its linkage to energy uses

• Global warming is causing greenhouse effects and it is leading to climate change.

• Four gases are responsible for 99.5% of the greenhouse effect -carbon dioxide (72.3%), nitrous oxide (18.4%), methane (7.9%) and dichlorodifluoromethane (0.9%).

• Greenhouse effects may be natural, manmade or both.• One of the primary causes of greenhouse gas emissions for which

humans are responsible result from the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) and much of the remainder results from farming and agricultural activities. Fossil fuels are used in power generation, to heat homes and offices, to power factories, to fuel transport and many more uses.

• Other manmade causes of greenhouse gases include deforestation, fertilisers, air conditioning units, open fires, fridges and freezers, numerous industrial and chemical processes, fire suppressants, coal mining, effluent, landfill sites, livestock and rice cultivation etc.

• There are several natural causes of greenhouse gases including volcanic activity, the seas and oceans, natural decay of plants and animals and the natural melting of ice caps.

Income & economy

Technology use

Entrepreneurial opportunities

Information & communication

Environmental improvements

Health & sanitation

Energy enterprise

Food & nutrition

Education & knowledge

Leisure

Rural development

Gender social equity

ENERGY

SERVICES

Energy has multiple potentials to create multiple effects

Impacts of climate change on women particularly related to energy.

• Climate change affects women more severely than men as they are more prone to vulnerability from climate change.

• About 70% of 1.5 billion people in developing countries living on less than one dollar a day are women.

• In developing countries, women living in poverty bear a disproportionate burden of climate change consequences because of women’s marginalized status, limited adaptive capacities arising from social inequalities and dependence on local natural scarce resources, their domestic burdens are increased, including additional work to fetch water, or to collect fuel and fodder.

Women and children are main victims of energy poverty

•Poor women’s lack of access to and control over natural resources, technologies, credits, extension services mean that they have fewer resources to cope with climate change. Consequently traditional roles are reinforced, girls’ education suffers, and women’s ability to diversify their livelihoods (access income-generating jobs) hampers.

•Women are primary caregivers, combining the care for children and the elderly with their domestic and income-earning activities. These additional responsibilities place additional burdens on women impacting their ability to work outside the home and to deal with the effects generated by environmental changes caused by global warming.

•In traditional societies women are even more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change because they are often not allowed to participate in the public sphere and thus have little access to information and communications.

•Lack of energy for household needs and small-scale enterprises limits women’s ability to take care of their families and themselves, pursue higher levels of education, earn income, and participate in social and community affairs.

• Energy pricing affects women directly because of their responsibility for household energy provision.

• Transport has a strong energy linkage with distinct North and South facets. Addressing the transport of agricultural produce and household fuels in the rural South could do much to reduce women’s burden. In the North and urban South, women tend to use public transport more than men, so petroleum fuel price increases fall disproportionately on women, particularly those from low income groups.

Women in Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation

• As in many societies, women are responsible for preparing food, there is much emphasis on the need for clean-burning fuels that are affordable and convenient to obtain. In places where it was once relatively easy to get firewood or charcoal, traditional fuel sources may now be scarce due to environmental degradation, and women would particularly benefit from increased availability of modern fuels such as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), or bio-fuels and biomass briquettes that can be produced locally from crops and agricultural residues available in rural areas. Improved stove technologies, with better efficiency and ventilation, as well as solar cookers, can also help reduce the dependency on unhealthy fuels and accompanying air pollution. As many of women’s business activities also involve cooking or heat processing, better fuels and thermal equipment can also advance women’s economic opportunities.

• Women need alternatives that require less physical energy for planting, irrigating and harvesting crops, grinding grains and processing staple foods, hauling water for household, agricultural and commercial uses, and transporting goods and materials. Relief from these strenuous daily tasks would help women preserve their health, and allow them to pursue educational and economic opportunities and spend more time with their families. Water pumps and motorized equipment can be powered by electricity from the grid, solar, wind or hydro generators, by engines run on diesel fuel or modern bio-fuels, and by wind or water mills.

Contd..• Households lighting and communications equipment allows

women, who often operate home-based enterprises compatible with household and care-taking responsibilities, to expand their reading, working and leisure time, improve their efficiency and knowledge base, and become more socially and politically engaged. Where grid connections are unavailable, electricity can be produced using decentralised generators running on diesel or bio-fuels, or wind, solar, and water power.

• Introduction of energy technologies, such as improved stoves, to meet environmental goals will be most successful if they also address the needs of the people meant to use them.

• At the same time, women are less informed about energy-saving measures than are men. This is linked to the technical bias of the information campaigns and/or a failure to address the target group adequately.

Grameen Shakti (GS) in Bangladesh is one of the largest rural based Renewable Energy Organisation in the world has good focus on women in climate change mitigation and adaptation

• Solar Home Systems, biogasplants, Improved CookingStoves

• Minimum 20,000 Green Jobshave been created with around1000 women trained as Solar,biogas and Improved CookStove Technicians and expertsfor growing organic fertilizerand plant trees.

• Women understand the benefitof renewable energytechnologies faster and betterthan men.

• Micro-credit has reduced upfront costs,

• Rural based Social engineers who understand rural people.

Grameen Technology CentersMobilizing Social Forces through creating awareness among women

•30 GTCs (Grameen Technology Center)now set up to carry out training & manufacturing in rural areas to strengthen GS services which are run by women leaders.

•Many women trainees set up their own energy businesses ie. moving beyond Solar PV.

•More than 10,000 School Children from rural areas have learned about Renewable Energy Technologies.

•More than 45,000 rural women have learned to take care of the systems installed in their homes.

Example of Green Woman EntrepreneurThis woman rented out a total of six biogas cookers. One of them is commercial. From thecommercial she gets TK 700. Her investment is TK 2700 and she gets TK 2100 for rentingthe three burners. The gas cooker has benefited her in many ways. She is earning moneyand generating electricity. It saves a lot of time as she does not have to clean blackenedpots and pans.

More rural women are switching to Improved Cook Stoves and have biogas plant from traditional stove for cooking

• Smoke free kitchens, no soot , saves women’ s lives

• Face , chest protected from stove heat

• Swifter and better cooking • More free time, • Saves biomass can be used

as fertilizer• Utilisation of wastes and

protect environment.• Improve Cook Stove saves

more than 50% firewood & cooking expenses.

Capacity Building of women in efficient energy management and RETs

Creating awareness among women through folk songs and drama on energy conservation

Women are involved in testing lamp circuit, assembling lamp circuit,inspection of charge controllers, testing of charge controller and circuit in remote rural areas called Char Mamataz

“UPOKULIO BIDDUTAYAN O MOHILA UNNAYAN SAMITY”Prokaushali Sangsad Ltd (PSL)

PSL, the Focal point of GEN-B Received the First ASHDEN Award in Bangladesh for its Project – “Opportunity of Women in Renewable Energy Technology.”

TIDE, India PSL, Bangladesh Grameen Shakti, Bangladesh

Winners of Ashden Award for Sustainable Energy and Focus on Women

Grameen Shakti won a first prize Ashden Award in 2006 for providing photovoltaic (PV) solar-home-systems through affordable loans to 65,000 households in Bangladesh and in 2008 for Sustainable Energy. Trained technicians, mostly women, manufacture components in over 30 Grameen Technology Centres (GTC), and install and service systems. Some of these technicians have become independent entrepreneurs.

Technology Informatics Design Endeavour (TIDE) received Ashden Award for Sustainable Energy and promotion of women in energy project.

Policies and development issues• The particular needs of women with respect to improved access to

energy are rarely taken into account in national policies and projects. Energy agencies tend to focus primarily on increasing fossil fuel supplies and expanding electrical distribution grids for industrial and urban expansion. While many energy managers are male engineers with primarily technical expertise, a transition to more sustainable energy sources will require decision makers to also consider social concerns, including the gender-differentiated needs and impacts of proposed sustainable energy initiatives.

• Enabling women’s voices to be heard in decision-making—Women are currently underrepresented in energy policy making positions, and generally still face constraints in decision-making process at all levels of social organisation whether it be in national and local government or in their homes and workplaces. Although having more women in positions of political power may not guarantee that the energy concerns of women living in poverty become national priorities, greater participation of women in the design and implementation of sustainable energy initiatives will increase the livelihood that women as well as men will benefit from them.

• In the industrialised nations, gender biases and social and economic differentials are also evident in terms of access to energy, affordability, and women’s role in achieving that, and the absence of women at the decision-making level of the energy sector. Over consumption in industrialised countries weakens the capacity of developing countries to cover their energy needs and to combat poverty, which affects primarily women.

• Governments are ultimately responsible for the provision of basic human needs. Liberalisation and privatization of essential public goods like water, energy and transport is problematic because it shifts responsibility from governments to private investors who remain largely unaccountable to citizens in general. This situation has a negative impact on the poorest and in particular on women’s lives. In the EU, the liberalization of energy markets reduced energy prices and gave consumers more choices in terms of suppliers but at the expense of quality and availability—as when public transport services are cutback or catered exclusively to the needs of people in paid employment, or when water quality falls while prices rise. Previous privatisation processes in energy and water supply have shown that private households have profited substantially less from liberalisation of energy than has industry; across the EU private households paid on average 60 percent more for their electricity than industry in 2003 compared with 51 percent in 1994. At the same time, liberalisation is accompanied by massive job cuts, which are frequently detrimental to the advancement of women.

• The rise of energy prices affects energy accessibility and its usage by the poorest, particularly elderly women and single mothers. For example, women on low incomes tend to live in poorly insulated houses, equipped with old and less energy efficient domestic appliances. Both these factors lead to a higher demand for energy, and consequently higher expenditure on energy as a proportion of the overall household budget, which may, in turn, lead to energy poverty.

• Energy poverty is a growing problem in industrialised countries, where many households need to spend around 20% of their income on all fuel use to heat the home to an adequate standard and for meeting their needs for lighting, cooking and running domestic appliances.

• The recent rise of oil and gas prices showed direct impacts on poor households that were forced to take out loans for their energy bills. In Canada e.g. in 2003, low income households (lowest quintile) spend over 14% of their income on fuel and electricity – three times as much as all households in Canada.

• In many countries, women are more severely affected by energy policy taxation instruments such as eco- or energy taxes because the proportion of their already lower incomes that has to be spent on energy rises as a result—although the eco-tax does have a more positive influence on the energy-saving behaviour of women than on that of men.

• The experience of Chernobyl is proof that nuclear energy can be very dangerous, despite efforts by the pro-atomic lobby to present nuclear energy as a safe and useful alternative. In the fields of science and medicine it is widely accepted that there is no safe threshold for radiation impacts on living organisms, meaning that any additional radiation exposure, however small, will inevitably cause negative effects among members of the exposed group although it is not possible to predict exactly who will suffer, when or in what way.

• Energy consumption in industrialised countries also reveals a significant gender component. For example, in the transport sector women, in all age and income groups, consume less energy; they use more public transport and drive more energy-saving cars. In addition, the transport sector is the area with the greatest growth rate, which generates an increase of energy consumption and impacts climate protection, land use and biodiversity.

• Women tend not to be involved in decisions about technical solutions to reduce energy consumption, partly because relatively few possess technical qualifications. Also, women have less financial resources and therefore less access to residential property, which means fewer women are making decisions about technical solutions as home owners like whether to install thermal-insulation and energy-efficient heating systems, or to use solar energy.

• While the proportion of women in the energy sector has started to rise in recent years, the sector is still dominated by men, particularly in the technical areas. In Australia women make up 20 percent of the work force in the electricity, gas and water sectors, but occupy less than five percent of technical posts; in Germany, the share of female technical staff in the energy industry is around six percent and in decisionmaking positions four percent. Women in the energy industry work mainly in administration, sales, finance, catering and personnel. The energy sector has a highly masculine image. This is known to be a significant barrier to female participation.

• As predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), “climate change impacts will be differently distributed among different regions, generations, age classes, income group, occupations and genders”12. The IPCC also notes: “the impacts of climate change will fall disproportionately upon developing countries and the poor persons within all countries, and thereby exacerbate inequities in health status and access to adequate food, clean water, and other resources.”

Global Attention on Women in Energy

Much of the early activity related to gender and energy was at the project level and it was not until the new millennium that the issue began to appear in international policy debates. The ninth meeting of the Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD-9) in 2001 was the first time that intergovernmental dialogue focused specifically on the relationship between energy and multiple development issues. CSD-9 concluded that access to energy services (rather than supplies, fuels, or electricity), in other words the benefits that energy provides, is an essential prerequisite for reducing poverty. The document signed at the end of CSD-9 was also groundbreaking in the sense that it recognises that there are gender and energy issues both in the North and in the South (UN, 2001).

• In 2000, world leaders agreed an ambitious set of global targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs have no specific target on energy. Rather, the relationship between gender and both energy and development is implicit rather than explicit. However, the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) in its publication “Energy for the Poor” demonstrated the role that energy has in meeting the MDGs (DFID, 2002). Havet (2003) has taken this work further by showing the gender dimensions of energy and the MDGs. While both men and women benefit from access to energy in terms of reducing poverty and hunger through increased food production, employment, and clean water, women and girls are likely to gain additional benefits due to time saving, particularly in terms of water and fuel collection, and improved health, particularly through the use of cleaner fuels.

• While much of the gender and energy discourse has focused on the South due to the acutely manifest importance of energy in women’s lives in the South, energy issues in richer countries also have important implications for gender relations, female political participation, and sustainable development. In both cases, the role of women in political life, community organisations, and families points to the important leadership opportunities that can bring about positive change created by using energy as an instrument to achieve multiple objectives linked to social justice, environmental protection, and economic empowerment. In the North, the direct involvement of many women in energy issues came about through political opposition to nuclear power, as in Europe after the Chernobyl disaster.

• There is no doubt that, over the last twenty years, there has been a considerable development in our understanding of gender and energy issues and how we should, at least in the South, address them.

• Box 1: Encouraging Women and Men’s Participation in Community Energy Projects In 1996, the Rural Energy Development Programme (REDP) in Nepal established male and female community organisations with equal responsibilities to work on the project. The REDP project aims at enhancing rural livelihoods and preserving the environment by supporting the installation of microhydro power systems. Every participating household sends a male member to the male community organisation and a female member to the female community organisation. The segregation of women and men into separate organisations encourages men and women to discuss and analyse the specific problems they face. The community organisations meet every week. By the end of 2000 the total membership was 20,258 women and 19,125 men in 1,021 female and 1,000 male community organisations. Additionally, the project facilitates capacity building through training in reading and writing, management, and leadership. The equal opportunities have had a very visible and positive impact in mobilising women and integrating them into mainstream activities. The women in community organisations have a distinct voice in local affairs and self-confidence has increased, as has their capability for independent and collective action. (Rana-Deuba, 2001).

• There is a particular need to provide substitutes for human energy to remove drudgery and increase wellbeing. This has been one of the gains that increased energy provision through fossil fuels and electricity has brought in the North6. In the South, similar improvements in the quality of life are enjoyed by a small percentage of the population, the so-called urban elites, who have sufficient income to purchase modern forms of energy and the appropriate conversion technologies. In development terms, it is the other part of the population – the substantial majority living in rural and urban areas often referred to as “the poor” - that needs assistance towards achieving an improved quality of life and more sustainable livelihoods7. This is the context in which renewable energy technologies have to work.

• In 1992 the UN Conference on Environment and Development produced Agenda 21 recognized the advancement of women as an essential element of sustainable development.

• The Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995 adopted the Beijing Platform for Action in which governments agreed to support women’s equal access to sustainable and affordable energy technologies and to use participatory needs assessments to design national Energy plans.

• In 2001, the Ninth Session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD-9) urged governments to address the health and safety concerns of women and children in rural areas, including the impacts of carrying fuel wood over long distances and exposure to the smoke from open fires. CSD-9 also recommended international cooperation to promote women’s equal access and opportunities to energy and their greater involvement in energy policy decision-making processes.

• Other UN conferences e.g The World Summit on Sustainable Development (2002), and the 2005 World Summit recognized the essential role women play in sustainable development have also acknowledged the importance of adopting a gender specific approach to implementing policies, and gender equality has been identified as one of the Millennium Development Goals and designated as a crosscutting theme for work of the Commission on Sustainable Development. Yet when it comes to energy, climate change, and environmental protection, UN agencies, national governments, international organisations and non-government groups still fail to integrate gender perspectives adequately into policies and actions.

Women all over the world demand that the final statement of the Bali UNFCCCagree with the conclusion of the environmental ministers of Austria, Germany,Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Norway, Luxembourg and Iceland who met in Vienna on1 October 2007 and who said that they (the ministers)do not consider nuclearpower an instrument to answer the challenge of climate change.

• UN Secretary General’s High-Level Climate Change Event and the High-Level Roundtable “How a Changing Climate Impacts Women”

• The UNFCCC should develop a gender strategy, invest in gender-specific climate change research, and establish a system for the use of gender-sensitive indicators and criteria for governments to use in national reporting to the UNFCCC Secretariat, adaptation planning, or projects under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).

• Market-based approaches to curbing climate change, such as the Clean Development Mechanism, should be made accessible to both women and men and ensure equitable benefits, considering that women and men do not have equal access to natural resources such as water and energy, land titles, credit, or information. In particular, the CDM should fund projects that make renewable energy technologies more available to women and meet their household needs.

The gendered impacts of biofuels and nuclear energy as a solution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions should be assessed, in cooperation with gender experts and women's organizations.

Since the UNFCCC emerged from UNCED, which outlines nine major groups that are essential to sustainable development, women and all major groups should be included as official focal points in the UNFCCC.

• For the first time in UNFCCC history, a world wide coalition of women has drafted position papers with the women’s and gender perspective on the most pressing issues negotiated at COP13/CMP3. gendercc, a global alliance of women for climate justice, presented their positions to the conference and press today, 7 December 2007. Women are the most affected by climate change, but they are also key catalysts for positive change. Their knowledge and experience is fundamental for a successful mitigation of climate change, as well as for climate change adaptation.

The women meeting in Bali with gendercc demand that a future climate regime be designed in a framework of gender equality and sustainability guidelines, instead of being driven by dominant economic factors. To mitigate climate change, the root causes must be addressed more fundamentally.

• Recognize the vital urgency of gender equality in the growing climate crisis and demonstrate leadership through top-level support for considering gender concerns in all UNFCCC and related processes (also known as “gender mainstreaming.”) and including the installation of a ‘gender watch system’ within UNFCCC.

Integrate gender aspects into adaptation plans and tools, focusing on specific adaptation needs, and ensuring women’s participation in developing the plans;

Commit to sustainable and equitable financing schemes and ensure gender equity in all phases and aspects of funding.

Allocate 20% of all donor funds to be earmarked for activities and projects addressing women and designed and implemented by women and gender experts

Merle worked on various energy efficient technologies applied to green architecture

(retaining wall, biofence, rain water harvesting tank, cowshed, workers' toilet, shuttering and concreting)

Cow Shed Rubble Granite Retaining wall Spring containment

5000L water storage tank Biofence Rainwater harvesting tank

The Lives of Women can be changed through better life, education, recreation, access to communication and info and generating incomes.

• them—For example, in India, a small non-governmental organization called TIDE (Technology Informatics Design Endeavour) found that women in rural areas rejected stoves distributed by the government to reduce consumption of fuel wood, because they did not reduce smoke, which was more important to the women. New designs that met women’s needs were rapidly adopted without any government intervention.

• In Bangladesh BCSIR, GS and GTZ are promoting Improved Cook Stoves in rural and periurban areas which have got good acceptability.

Development of women entrepreneursand their Capacity building on technical,entrepreneurial and Institutional aspectsMarket DevelopmentSolar charging stations

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Follow up Activities

Renewable Energy Technologies/Green Architecture

Engr (Ms) Reba Paul

Executive Secretary, Bangladesh Water Partnership& Joint Secretary and Gender Coordinator of

Bangladesh Renewable Energy Society (BRES) &Executive Committee Member, Shubashati

USAID-SARI Energy SAWIE Executive Exchange on Efficient Energy Management, Energy Conservation and Renewable Energy

Organised by United States Energy Association (USEA)

May 12-20 May, 2009

Group Members of Renewable Energy Technologies/Green Architecture

1. Dr. Merle Kindred/India 12. Ms. Farzana Rahman, Bangladesh

2. Ms. Svati Bhogle/India 13. Ms. Aziza Haque, Bangladesh

3. Ms. Geetha/ India 14. Ms. Dharshanamala Dissanayake, SriLanka

4. Ms. Reba Paul/Bangladesh(Team Leader)

15. Dr. Sanja Gunawardena, SriLanka(Deputy Team Leader)

5. Ms. Pallabi Zaman/Bangladesh 16. Ms. Deki Choden, Bhutan

6. Arch Madhumita/India 17. Mrs. Parveen Sultana, Member, GEN-Bangladesh and Ex-Deputy Director, REB

7. Ms. Shantha Das/India 18. Ms. Shireen Kamal Sayeed, Asst. Resident Rep, UNDP –Dhaka (Adviser) (nm)

8. Ms. Soma Dutta/ India 19. Prof. Mahbuba Nasreen, Department of Sociology, Dhaka University (nm)

9. Ms. Farzana Husain, Bangladesh

10. Ms. Sabrina Shahbab, Programme Coordinator, Grameen Shakti (nm)

20. Ms. Fathimath Rasheedha, Maldives

11. Dr. Tureen Afroz, Barrister-at-Law, Law Dev (Bangladesh) and Professor, BRAC Unuiversity (nm)

Action Plan developed in Dhaka

• Study on energy efficient residential building in Dhaka.• Workshop for architects on energy efficient house building.• Project Proposal on Small Grant of SARI-Energy on ‘Lighting a Million’

households initiative.• Project Proposal on Small Grant of SARI-Energy on Solar Lantern

Distribution among poor and Testing Efficiency of electronic ballast.• Involvement of Women n operating Solar pump.• Capacity Building of Women on ICS, Biogas Slurry utilisation, biogas

operation and maintenance and repair and maintenance of SHSs.• Project Proposal on Small Grant of SARI-Energy for research and studies on

RETs and EC.• Assist NGOs to apply for Small Grant Fund.• Establishment of COSFORD Lorry Baker and Govt of Kerala’s Education

Center on Energy Conservation and Efficient House Building.• Proposal for SARI Small Grant for a documentary film of slum rehabilitation.

•Disseminate knowledge and experience gained from Executive Exchange on SAWIE in Washington DC.•Interaction among group members on Follow up of Dhaka Action Plan and Development of project proposals for Small Grant of SARI-Energy to be submitted in next July, 2009.

•Development of a database on women managers of Grameen Shakti working in Grameen Technology Centers (GTC) and women technicians who are trained in GTCs.

•Support recently formed Women Network of Grameen Shakti and its activities and Establish a broad based women in energy network in Bangladesh on name of SAWIE –Bangladesh• Programme design on energy efficient lighting.

•Capacity Building of Women on ICS, Biogas and SHSs.

•Disseminate knowledge and information on RETs and efficient energy management.

•Expansion of Group members on RETS/GA.

Follow Up after Executive Exchange on SAWIE in Washington DC