To quote Howard Zinn, famous author of the ‘PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF THE AMERICAS’, “ the demands of the poor may not be just all the while but if we do not heed to them then we may never understand what justice truly means”
The importance of gender equity can be discussed only when a sufficient case for inclusion of women into the decision making process is made and that shall be the standing premise through which the issue of mainstreaming gender in the climate change debate would be looked at.
When Nicolas stern came out with the widely popular 'stern report' that stated that climate change is more of a result of market failure than any other factor and has had the capacity to shrink world economy by 20%, he pretty much laid the basic framework that would be used to address and understand climate change. the fact that climate change was seen as a market failure was a failure in itself in terms of the myopic approach that was involved in the thought process that culminated in this declaration. It is not a surprise that market forces have always been unleashed by the powers of western capitalism on unsuspecting populations in the developing world that have resulted in complete devastation of economies starting from latin America to Africa to Asia.
The one major stakeholder who rarely figures in the discussion on these themes are the women, disaggregated data that show how these very market forces have impacted women are unavailable. In a way the role played by the ‘care’ economy has always been unseen and unrecognised, the results have been cataclysmic for women populations across the globe as policy after policy barely speak about the importance of gender inclusion.
The monetisation of the global economy and narrow parameters that define growth, the undue importance given to economic growth, the exclusionist principles of the market, the myth of free trade and globalisation have all combined to dis empower women in a manner that has made them all the more powerless and ineffective in influencing major decisions that shape their lives. Women have watched helplessly as the powers sitting far away ensconced safely amidst the rocky mountains or in ski resorts have made policies that have upset their lifestyles without suggesting how they would be able to cope with them.
The fact that climate change debates today do not question the relevance of the economic models that have brought the world to this juncture highlights the inherent limitations of the debate. Rather than trying to understand what economics have pushed us to this situation we are continuing to talk of mitigation under the same framework that led us to this crisis. Further the very models that excluded the marginalised and the poor are being projected as saviours and let me put it this way why the world would never understand why climate change and sustainable development would remain mere terms for the masses, the answer is simple, capitalist economic models backed by policies of free trade and deregulation have been responsible for exacerbating poverty, unemployment and hence exclusion.
Sustainable development is a term that arrived after the Brundtland report came up but the very manner it defined sustainability has thrown up numerous interpretations most of them paying lip sympathy to the term. It is impossible to step up production by 5 to 10 times as the report claims in any sustainable manner that mankind knows. So we have a situation where the very term is seen as an oxymoron that is being further crippled by discussions that are not aiming to address the ‘cause’ of the problem but suggesting market driven solutions to mitigate the effects, the same markets have been at the crux of the problems though not many would acknowledge that as well. Sustainable development has therefore made no more sense to people as may be preamble makes to majority of the Indians. The importance of gender integration is therefore lost on everyone, this has been evident by the representation that gender issues are allotted to in discussions on climate change or development paradigms. The problem also lies in the nature of science that dominates the climate change arena. It is too technical, reductionist and converts nature science into an obscure array of numbers and graphs, what is conveniently forgotten is the fact that when science loses touch with the people for whom it is made to be, then that science is not people’s science.
I would not be quoting numbers to state how big the poor female population is and how many are at the receiving end of inertia predominant at several climate change and G8 conferences, but what I would like to talk about is the fact that slowly their positions are moving to a point of no recovery, the ‘tipping point’ as people would like to call it. The global poor population has over 65% females, the invisible players in the ‘care economy’, whose activities don’t get accounted in the GDP and hence seen as unproductive unless they make a self help group and do some ‘income generating activities’. Saddling women with more work in a situation where the forest that used to provide them with ready firewood is being removed at an alarming rate, the river that used to provide them water for their household is now dammed to supply power elsewhere. Studies show that tribal women in central India now travel upto 7 km to get firewood and water, up from 1.5 km over the last 50 years. Am not even speaking of the security related issues that women have to face in the process. Gender dis empowerment is therefore inbuilt in the very way sustainable development is conceptualised.
The way ahead would not be to go for disaggregated data at all levels but to look for policy level prescriptions that guarantee ownership of factors of production like land, access to the forest resources that the Forest Rights Act,2006 in its un amended form intended to do. The way ahead is to learn from the wisdom of rural women and develop economies on the style of the Gram Swaraj model that Gandhi speaks of in his ‘Hind Swaraj’. That is the true form of sustainability that addresses local issues locally and not by obscure people sitting at even obscure locations.
It’s time to put back control and livelihoods in the hands of the common rural household....
