Climate change, gender equality and human rights in Asia: regional review and promising practices

Unequal power dynamics and norms in both the private and public sphere: e.g., women are disproportionately responsible for unpaid care and domestic work, which means they bear the brunt of climate change impacts on households, including the health impacts of water scarcity and food shortages; Discriminatory laws and customs: e.g., patrilineal customary land tenure systems across Asia expose rural women to insecure land tenure and risk of landlessness, which reduces their livelihood options and capacities to adapt to climate change; 3) Unequal access to and control of resources: e.g., gendered access to resources (including land, water, food crops, etc.) shape differentiated vulnerabilities.

Importantly, multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and inequalities in all sectors have consequences for specific groups of people.

Enablers include, for example, national climate change frameworks recognising human rights and gender equality as core principles, including through mandating roles of women in decision-making. An example of success is increased access to clean energy contributing to improving women’s health, security, and access to information, decreasing their time poverty, and creating new opportunities for income-generating activities. Among the main challenges is the lack of an intersectional lens which results in overlooking the needs and rights of marginalised groups, such as landless women, women from ethnic minorities, or girls with disabilities.

1) Formulate holistic policies to tackle climate change, human rights violations, and gender inequality – including through investing in health sector resilience, ensuring human resources to deliver health care, and training health care workers to identify, prevent, and address climate-related diseases; 2) Ensure multi-stakeholder cooperation to implement holistic policies and programs; 3) Prioritise actions that redress social and gender inequalities through transformative programs; 4) Support research to inform evidence-based policies and programs.