In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground. A time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other. That time is now.
Partnering for Climate Justice
THE CLIMATE CRISIS REQUIRES A FEMINIST SOLUTION.
WLP is responding to the climate challenge with a multidisciplinary, holistic approach that puts women at the forefront of advocating for policies and resources to slow down climate change.
Program Highlights
Capacity-building on climate adaptation techniques for local women leaders
Successful advocacy campaigns to improve women's access to land
Increasing dialogue across sectors on climate justice
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WLP partners are working together for climate justice, which puts first the needs of those most severely affected by climate change. WLP believes that reducing the human impact on our environment will take balanced, inclusive, participatory decision-making by multiple stakeholders from diverse geographic regions, religions, and cultures, and most especially the full engagement of women.
For decades, environmental activists have been raising the alarm about climate change and the need for a global approach to lowering greenhouse gas emissions. The fallout from rising temperatures has included melting glaciers, reduced habitat, soil erosion, droughts, flooding, and super storms and hurricanes. Women, and particularly women in the Global South, are on the frontlines of social, economic, and political upheavals triggered by the effects of climate change. This is because women are more reliant on natural resources—overwhelmingly they are the farmers and collectors of fuel, and women are most frequently responsible for preparing the meals and ensuring the health and welfare of children. Women, and by extension the children under their care, are also the most vulnerable when natural disasters strike because they have the least financial, political, and social capital to cope with the catastrophes.
Julie Cisse of WLP Senegal/GIPS-WAR (left) attends the Kilimanjaro meeting with other land rights activists in Abuja, Nigeria.
EMPOWERING WOMEN TO LEAD ON CLIMATE JUSTICE
WLP is responding to the climate challenge with a multidisciplinary, holistic approach that puts women at the forefront of advocating for policies and resources to slow down climate change. WLP’s partners have been working towards climate justice for nearly a decade. Partners in Senegal and Morocco have led initiatives to secure women’s rights to land stewardship, sustainable land management, and water conservation, as well as women’s equitable land ownership. WLP partners have promoted women’s economic initiatives based on recycling and upcycling products, crop diversity, and the slow food movements. In Kyrgyzstan, WLP partners have brought international attention to the environmental disasters caused by uranium and other mining. In Brazil, WLP partners are fighting the extractive industries’ unsafe and environmentally devastating practices which have resulted in pollution and the collapse of massive dams. WLP’s partner in Turkey has been a leader in promoting disaster and risk reduction programs through women’s cooperatives, where thousands of women and men have been trained in disaster management.
In the last year, WLP launched a Feminist Climate Forum in partnership with the American University of Beirut. The Forum brought together representatives of dozens of women's rights organizations along with academics, policymakers, representatives of interfaith communities, artists, and members of the media. The proceedings focused on the connections between climate justice, gender equality, sustainable development, and peace, and how women’s rights and climate justice advocates can work together towards their shared objectives.
CLIMATE JUSTICE CURRICULUM
WLP is developing culture-specific climate justice curriculum for experienced advocates, grassroots women, and youth. From basic climate science to advocacy success stories, the curriculum will engage and inspire activism at the local, regional, and national levels. The curriculum will follow the same workshop methodology as WLP’s foundational leadership curriculum, Leading to Choices, which elevates peer experience and knowledge sharing. Additionally, in 2020 WLP will launch its newest documentary about the safety challenges women face, and human security challenges more generally. In this new film human rights experts describe how so many threats to human security, from food shortages to armed conflict, are interrelated, and as a corollary so many of the solutions are likewise interconnected. Climate activists, including President of Ireland, former High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson and Executive Director of Women’s Environment and Development Organization, Bridget Burns, describe how climate justice underpins human efforts to find equality, freedom, and security.