Women are Building a Green Community to Control Climate Catastrophe
This is a guest post by , the creator of The Green Solutions.
When Parva came to me a bit ago to join forces in creative ways, I felt like I had found a kindred spirit. What I love about what Parva writes about is that it’s both personal, but also rooted in science. Enjoy her contribution this week and don’t hesitate to give her Substack a follow.
A 2019 study found that women’s involvement in national parliaments results in the implementation of stricter climate change regulation with significant conservation and resource governance at the local level.
"We cannot condemn our children, and their children, to a future that is beyond their capacity to repair"
This speech hit me harder when I became a mother. During my maternity leave, I decided to pursue my love for writing in an attempt to do something for myself during the few hours of free time I had in a day. I ended up starting Dr. Green Economy as it has become important to think about climate action– if not for us, but for our upcoming generation. The newsletter has now become part of my life as my twin ‘digital’ baby, growing up happily with my human baby.
I am a scientist by profession. I love numbers and graphs. So my newsletter came live as a digital place for people to come and get informed about climate change as quickly as possible in numbers and graphs–not too many words.
Women are key to fighting the climate crisis
What started as a hobby in the beginning later became a movement and a business. I decided to build a community that talks about sustainability and climate change and is keen to collaborate in the net-zero movement together.
The only way to build the community is by bringing in more community and having the network effect play in. So, I talked to the business founders and interviewed them about their journey and motivation for the sustainability field. That's how the Green Entrepreneur section was born.
It was not an easy ride, though. I had to knock on every door I knew in my network who was working in the sustainability field. The idea was to set up a call with them and interview them about their businesses. It was right after COVID-19 time and during my maternity leave— and I was really enjoying the calls. Sometimes, we would end up talking for more than two hours, even though we had planned for an hour.
Initially, I just wanted to talk to them because I was learning so much from the founders with every interview. I started asking about their mistakes, challenges, and plan. I was always curious to know how they broke through that initial barrier of reaching the first few loyal customers. However, with time, I realized that people love reading this kind of story. So I started hunting more founders. To my surprise, I somehow only managed to convince female leaders.
Fighting climate crisis could set gender equality back by 15 years
Mrs. Zineb Sqalli gave a TED talk a few months ago on Climate Action’s Hidden Opportunities for Women. She highlighted to the audience that she and her team studied the links between women and climate over the last few years, which showed that our action to fight against climate change could set gender equality back by 15 years. She pointed out two reasons:
By 2030, 65 million green jobs will be created, which would mostly require STEM education: science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Today, there are only 35% of women STEM students globally. This means that naturally fewer women will be qualified to access these green jobs.
By 2030, companies in the sectors –such as energy, building materials, and industrial goods will be spending as much as $500 billion to train their employees in new green skills. The women, already fewer in these sectors, are less likely to participate in this training, widening the skill gap.
However, we have the power and responsibility to advance both the climate agenda and gender equality by being intentional about it. How do we become intentional? We become intentional by
Ascending women-specific needs upfront, even if the project is not specifically targeting women;
Involving women in the design of the project, and
Measuring the impact of the project on women and adjusting if necessary.
Climate crisis comes to the poorest first
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)'s stated that the poorest and most vulnerable will be the ones to suffer the worst effects of climate change. Currently, about 70% of the most vulnerable of the 1.5 billion people living on less than $1 a day are women.
In most countries, women have by nature limited access to and control of environmental goods and services. They have negligible participation in decision-making and are not involved in the distribution of environmental management benefits, which means they are less able to confront climate change. Of the whole population who have been relocated due to longer-lasting droughts, decreased food production, and extreme weather events, 80% are women.
Despite their vulnerability, women are not only seen as victims of climate change but also as active and effective agents and promoters of adaptation and mitigation. In 2018, Yale School of the environment published a graph (Figure 1) looking at the gender differences in views and understanding of global warming. The research found that although both genders are well aware of global warming happening, women consistently have higher risk perceptions that it will harm them personally. That aligned with the point that a greater proportion of women worry about global warming compared to men.
I also realized during Dr. Green Economy’s journey that women believe in a more collaborative approach because they know somehow they are behind due to gender inequality, and they need a community to fight it. Women are increasingly seen as having a big impact on achieving the transition to a greener economy.
Improving women's adaptation to climate change
The UN indicates that including women in the planning process helps communities implement resilience and capacity-building measures more successfully. In addition, women frequently lead efforts to reduce disaster risk, serve as first responders in community responses to natural disasters, and aid in post-disaster recovery by attending to their families' immediate needs and fostering a sense of community.
Financing female-led initiatives benefit both society and the environment, as research shows that female business leaders are better at considering the climate in their business decisions. However, the IFC estimates that only 7% of total private equity and venture funding in emerging markets are targeted toward female-led businesses and, similarly, just 3% of philanthropic environmental funding supports girls’ and women’s environmental activism.
So, this is where we are at the moment! With The Green Solutions I plan to create stronger, more resilient communities together with all genders. With the suggested approach from Zineb Sqalli’s TED talk, we are better prepared to tackle the challenges of climate change by building a community and understanding women-specific needs upfront, involving women, and measuring the impact. However, we also need the contribution of the other half of the population to make this approach successful.
I really didn't want to see it as a women-only subgroup, although for now, it has become like this (not that there is anything wrong with it!). Like Fleur Newman, Gender Team Lead at UN Climate Change, I have the same view, unless all of humanity participates in combating climate change, the world will not be able to achieve the fundamental objectives of the Paris Agreement to restrict global average temperature rise to 1.5°C.
You can follow
at The Green Solutions. I can’t recommend a follow more highly. Her content is accessible, hopeful, easily digestible, and rooted in science and solutions.
 | A guest post by
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It's a pleasure to be part of your Substack, Elizabeth :).