Step down from the top table and Ask a Lioness!

by Lionesses of Africa Operations Department

“Those with the least resources have the least capacity to adapt and are the most vulnerable.”

“Almost 80% of the respondents…foresee at least 2.5C of global heating, while almost half anticipate at least 3C (5.4F). Only 6% thought the internationally agreed 1.5C (2.7F) limit would be met. Many of the scientists envisage a “semi-dystopian” future, with famines, conflicts and mass migration, driven by heatwaves, wildfires, floods and storms of an intensity and frequency far beyond those that have already struck.” - according to a large survey done of hundreds of the world’s leading climate scientists (see here) who make up the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Having got your attention, we have to ask the question, how will that affect us? “Hurricanes, floods, and other incidents related to climate change affect whole communities, and should presumably, therefore, affect the lives of women and men equally”, is the opening assumption in a paper entitled ‘Climate change vulnerability, impacts, and adaptation: why does gender matter?’, by Fatma Denton in Oxfam’s Gender and Development Journal, part of their Focus on Gender series (here). So yes on paper Climate Change should impact the genders equally, but as we know (and as Denton goes onto show), ‘theory and practice are exactly the same…except in practice’.

The problem with gaps between theory and practice is that as one moves to the extreme, so these gaps get wider…as Rachel Masika writes in the Editorial to the Journal: “Those with the least resources have the least capacity to adapt and are the most vulnerable.” A small difference in capacity will over time simply increase vulnerability dramatically.

The impacts from Global Warming do not jump or ratchet up with each upward degree of movement, instead there is an exponential climb - some have likened it to boiling a Frog (not that we have tried - sounds horrific), by the time the Frog realises it’s in trouble, it’s far too late.

El Niño is a case in point. Although a weather pattern rather than climate change (first noticed in the 1600’s), climate change is making this far worse. Recently we have tragically seen ultra dry patterns in Zambia and elsewhere in the south of Africa, countered only by huge flooding further north in East Africa and especially around Lake Tanganyika. As Climate Change grows, the impact of more natural events is exacerbated.

As Denton confirms in her paper, Climate Change does not “…affect the lives of women and men equally”, a point also confirmed in “Climate Change and Women's Health: A Scoping Review” by Desai and Zhang, published in the GeoHealth Journal (here), which points out, whilst around 1.3 billion people are living below the poverty line in low and middle-income countries (LMICs), 70% of these are female, so any impact on LMICs will naturally have a larger impact on women.

They then drilled down deeper into the issue and found time and time again, be it in maternal health; in cooking (the health issues of constantly burning wood or charcoal); in searching for firewood or water (shockingly ‘firewood rape’ is a term used by the UN to cover women attacked whilst searching further and further for firewood - here); or in their primary industry - agriculture: “In very remote areas, patriarchal nature of the communities enhanced gender discrimination and violence against women when natural disasters destroyed agricultural crops and decreased household income”; the list of higher and larger impact on women goes on and on…

Whilst it is indeed true that immediate issues need to be solved, it is the core issues (e.g. real land ownership) that need to be recognised and solved.  As Melinda (global icons need only one name) has said (here): “When the global agenda gets crowded, gender equality is one of the first items to fall off. It is treated as a distraction from the world’s most pressing problems, even though the data make clear it’s a central part of the solution.”

Although it is well known that women’s businesses create jobs and build communities and that good jobs are one of the best ways globally to build resilience, it is so strange that investment across the globe to this essential building block is stuck heavily in single figures (2% in Africa here), with the financing gap also huge (and growing). It is also well known that (as we see within our inspirational membership) working so closely within their communities, women have discovered, designed and brought to market amazing solutions to many of the globe’s problems, be it plastic (take a bow Bilikiss Adebiyi-Abiola and Chioma Ukonu), mountains of old tires (ditto the inspirational Bethlehem, and Kevine and Ysolde), a lack of drinking water (award winning Christelle), or the health and safety of cooking from home (the tireless Sarah), all  whilst building 'good jobs’ and communities, as Bethlehem says in her Lioness article:

"We began soleRebels to bring jobs to our community, a place where there literally were NONE."

So how can we ensure US$ support gets straight to the heart of the problem, direct to these inspirational Lionesses and many other like them we have within our membership who are building great jobs (the significant majority of employees being women) and growing communities?

Part of supporting those ‘on the ground’ in their battles against climate change is through a trusted and fully working global Carbon Credit market. As Sarah (a long-time 100Lioness member and a major league verified Carbon Credit producer) states (here): “We have to drive Carbon Markets in Africa, we need regulators that are transparent and understand the [need for] urgency, speed and accountability not only from project developers but by regulators too. This will attract funding and ensure we scale across the continent by 2030.”

Carbon Credits work. Of course, it’s not a perfect system, but as the report ‘Accelerating Corporate Climate Finance through Carbon Markets’ from ICE, Bain and Co, and the We Mean Business Coalition, states (here): “Carbon markets can only deliver climate action at scale if they are scaled exponentially, not incrementally. The time to act is now. Together with standard-setters, corporations need to embrace the landscape of standards, recommendations, and best practices as they emerge, instead of waiting for the perfect solution. Only then will carbon markets be scaled in time to help bend the curve of global GHG emissions.”

Building the trust in the Carbon credit market to deliver is essential not only because we are running out of time, and momentum is against us, but trust in this will result in direct support from amongst others, the Global North corporates and banks straight to those making a real difference on the ground in building good jobs, growing communities, and in reducing vulnerability, with pinpoint accuracy to deliver US$ exactly where it will bring the most impact.

The reason Sarah is so successful is exactly because she has a verifiable impact directly at source (she cuts out 70-80% of the cooking time, time normally spent searching for firewood, cooking, and breathing in the fumes) - but the extra knock-ons are massive. Of course, she could have turned to a large manufacturer in say China, but instead, she created over 20,000 women-owned businesses as part of her manufacturing supply chain. Now that’s IMPACT!

In the right hands, the Carbon credit market brings so much more. Those in power and on the top table have to ensure trust in this tool is high.

At least part of the solution is simple - step down from the top table and Ask a Lioness!

Stay Safe.