In late October, Transition Cambridge had the pleasure to hear Susan Buckingham and Sandy McClure discuss climate justice and its relationship with gender inequalities in Cambridge and beyond. Susan Buckingham is an independent researcher and consultant on gender and environmental issues based in Cambridge, and Sandy McClure is the director of philanthropic partnerships at Global Greengrants Fund (GGF) UK.
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| Susan Buckingham (left) and Sandy McClure (right) |
We recorded the event in three parts so you can read on or listen, as you prefer.
Part 1: Blanca's introduction and then Sandy (Blanca's intro is noisy but it gets much better when Sue starts speaking)
Part 2: Sue's talk
Part 3: Questions
Sandy started the event by outlining the background of climate change saying that “over the past three or more decades, we in the global north have continued to benefit from industrialised polluting systems: fossil-fuelled energy production, over-consumption of goods, industrialised food production. And, as we all really well know, by doing so, we are generating carbon emissions way beyond what our natural world can absorb.”
Climate justice, she explains, is about seeking justice for those who contributed the least to causing climate change but who are suffering the most from its impact, such as food poverty, crop failure, loss of livelihood, and overall vulnerability to climate disasters.
But how are we going to achieve justice? Sandy argues that structural change is required. For example, by drawing down money and power from the international level to the local level, we can transform local economies, and restore and protect local communities.
Women play a key role, she continues, because “it is women who in the majority of societies are the natural resource managers. They are the ones looking at the land, growing the crops, feeding their communities.”
“Essentially, women and girls are stewards of the physical, economic, and cultural well-being of their communities. Having been placed in this role within the patriarchal society, it is women who are the first to feel the effects of climate change and, therefore, are disproportionately impacted by it.”
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| A slide from Sandy's presentation about GGF |
Sandy lists four women-led initiatives that GGF supports. “It takes courage to be at the forefront of these initiatives, and it takes courage to stand up and stand out” because “it’s that same abuse of power that wants to destroy the community resources and lands that extends to suppress activism.”
So, what can we do? “Your actions matter”, she explains, “these case studies of women leading the charge and really transforming livelihoods, local economies, and protecting their land and the environment [show] it starts with each person. So, it starts with each one of us. I would ask you to think about your own agency.”
Sandy ends her talk asking us to do one of the following: join the climate strikes; engage your local councillors and MPs; reduce your own carbon emissions; use your own resources; and join / support local and international organisations and women’s groups. ”These are all the things that we are able to do. And these are acts of solidarity with women in the global south who are supporting the transition to a regenerative economy.”
The second half of the event brought Susan to the stage, now describing how women in developed countries like the UK are also disproportionately impacted by climate change.
Susan explained that gender inequality, poverty and climate injustice could be understood together as driven by fundamental values of our current socio-economic system. First she associated the exploitation of the planet and people with our societies’ drive for capital accumulation and competition. She argued that these values also exacerbate patriarchal relations, which are based on a particular type of masculinity. Susan stressed, “I am going to talk about men and women (...), but it is more about masculinity and femininities. Because our society values a particular kind of masculinity, which is an alpha masculinity, industrial masculinity, the kind of aggressive, assertive, competitive masculinity, which does boys and men no service either”.
Women are poorer than men on average in every single country and it persists in the UK. The pay gap is worse for low paid workers. Susan highlighted that “in the UK 25% of single women are poor (...) and 23% single women pensioners are poor, 45% of single parents live in poverty and there are 47% of children living with a lone parent that are in poverty. And in the UK 90% of lone parents are women. So that clearly has a gender dimension”. Moreover, women are more likely to work part time to dedicate time to childcare and domestic work, which comes at a cost for their long term work career. In most countries, when you count the paid and unpaid work (childcare and domestic work) that women do, women end up doing more work than men.
Women do suffer more from climate related events than men. Susan explained how flooding is one of the events mostly linked to the climate crisis in the UK, she says that “homes which are not insured are going to be particularly impacted, and because the poorest households are the ones most likely to lack insurance, they are going to be the ones most impacted.” Also important to note is that in the aftermath of a natural disaster, women are the ones that restore the functioning of the household. “The poor are vulnerable to energy costs rises, food poverty, energy poverty, and we know that those affect women more” Susan says. Moreover, in some cases, it has been observed that when natural disasters occur, domestic violence increases. Susan also described how certain climate stresses had been more unfavourable to women than men, where “in the 2003 European heatwave, women were affected disproportionately to their number”.
Taken together, these outlined how overall women in the UK are affected first by climate change, and Susan argued that this is particularly the case in Cambridge. Cambridge is the most unequal city in the UK and hugely driven by growth. Susan described Cambridge as a consumer heaven, with as one example its fashion retailing industry, as described by Susan, being “predicated on making women feel bad about themselves (…) founded on women’s, and increasingly men’s, self-esteem”, which is another relation created by the structures based on alpha-masculinity that our society values.
In Cambridge, Kings Hedges and East Chesterton have the lowest life expectancy in the city, followed by Arbury and Abbey, and all four districts of Kings Hedges, East Chesterton, Arbury and Abbey are the four most likely to experience poor to very poor health. Poverty in those districts also affect women in particular as “In Arbury 11.4% of households are 1 person, almost 5% are lone parents with children, and 92.3% headed by women. In East Chesterton 10.5% of households are 1 person, 5.5% are lone parents and 93.7% are headed by women.” Moreover, Susan argues that in those neighbourhoods communities also have less access to green spaces.
Finally, Susan stressed that “we do have to recognise the dominant narrative (...) and we have to recognise the values and structures that support it. That is not going to happen overnight, meanwhile, women and men, we need to recognise our consumer power and use it sparingly, responsibly and well. We need to resist the marketing, which praises on feelings of insecurity and promotes the value of a particular way of being. We need to recognise that our consumer choices have a direct impact or link to other women’s poverty.” And then, we need to act accordingly, work on innovations to change the dominant narrative and take political action.
After both speakers had presented, discussions ensued. Audio recordings of each talk and the Q&A of the Cafe are available here. An important and energising discussion that we are sure will inspire many to act, gift and be in solidarity throughout the festive season and beyond.
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