Conference Agenda

The present study aims to investigate the impact of evolving characteristics of modern western societies on greenhouse gas emissions, with a specific focus on the phenomenon of female breadwinner households, which is relatively new around the world. Previous studies suggest that the increase in female breadwinner households has consequences on internal household organization, and the rise in economic resources provided by women leads to an increase in their bargaining power within the household. As a result, an increase in female breadwinner households may be reflected in decision-making power and, consequently, in the demand for different goods and services such as food, transport, or fashion commodities. Given that private household consumption contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions, an increase in female breadwinner households may have significant effects on global greenhouse gas emissions.

This paper tests the hypothesis that female and male breadwinner households present significant differences in the greenhouse gas emissions patterns induced by consumption. To investigate this issue, we analyze a sample of Spanish households' consumption baskets for 2008, 2014, and 2018, linking consumption levels with emissions through the Input-Output approach. The study combines three statistical data sources: Input-Output Tables estimated from Supply and Use Tables, the Environmental Accounts, and the Household Budget Survey. Furthermore, the datasets are combined with additional information that allows linking sectorial indicators in the Input-Output Tables with Household Budget Survey microdata (Bridge Matrices). After calculating a vector of direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions for each household sampled, the Propensity Score Matching estimator is applied to capture the mean differences in emissions between female and male breadwinner households with identical characteristics, isolating the effect of gender.

Preliminary results indicate a significant negative effect of female breadwinner households on greenhouse gas emissions patterns derived from household consumption, primarily due to the use of private transport by male breadwinner households. The findings suggest that an increase in female breadwinner households may lead to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Moreover, this study contributes to the growing demand for research linking the environment and gender, to the collection of environmental data disaggregated between women and men, and to expose the role of women in sustainable production and consumption.

Research on climate change has recently gained momentum due to increasing danger on livelihood, rights, health and safety of women globally as there is a growing need to develop competent solutions for women, generated by women.

My proposed paper centers on the nexus between women empowerment and climate change. Does increasing the representation and voice of women at decision-making levels accelerate better environmental policy choices and governance? Are women’s voices and rights integrated into climate change policy at the local, national and international level? I discuss gender mainstreaming in relation to developing climate resilience. Also, I examine the gender gap in climate policymaking and the effect on multilateral decision-making and negotiations.

I source data on countries in Sub-Saharan Africa from the Gender Climate Tracker website. The platform has comprehensive datasets on key statistics, policies, implementation, challenges and research related to gender and climate change under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This study employs multiple regression to rigorously examine the extent to which gender representation is integrated in national climate policy contexts in Sub-Saharan Africa and I control for socio-cultural impediments, broader political discrimination, and demographic barriers. The findings attest that more women’s voices are needed to echo in gender action plans to promote rights and benefits in climate policy and action.

The study recommends more promising models for policy action and capacity development for women policy- and decision-makers who tackle the root causes of gender inequalities at the global, national, and local levels.

Energy poverty is one of the major factors that affect the indoor quality of households leading to hazardous and unhealthy impacts on the individuals living within those households. These individuals are mostly women, young children, and elderly. Although, a vast size of literature is available that shows the households have transitioned towards clean energy use from traditional unclean fuel choices. But this transition has been unequal across different social caste or communities and gender. With this as reference, the paper discusses that how this unequal transition towards clean energy across different social castes lead to the chances of unequal distribution of health burden across these social caste or communities and gender. The paper also tries to analyse the impact of schemes like Ujjwala Yojana that aimed to uplift women welfare. The secondary database of National Family Health Survey and ACCESS survey are used for the analysis. The results show that although transition the transition towards clean energy was significant mainly due to the increased access to the electricity. At specific level, the transition of cooking fuel from unclean to clean has been almost stagnant for households belonging to schedule caste and schedule tribes and those whose ownership was with women. Further, the results show that although the speed of transition has increased after the implementation the Ujjwala yojana. But still the overall transition is slow. Next, the self-reported health of women across different social caste or communities is analysed to know whether the unequal transition of household energy is further reflected on their health in an unequal way or not. The results show that keeping other factors constant the women of household belonging to schedule caste and tribe are more likely to suffer from respiratory health issues. The paper concludes that although the overall energy poverty has decreased in terms of clean energy access to all households. But still a lot must be done. Moreover, increasing prices of clean fuel and energy is over the past few years is another possible reason why women of households belonging schedule caste or tribes are less likely to use clean fuel as primary source of cooking especially in rural areas.

Climate change continues to be of great concern both nationally and internationally, especially with regards to resource allocation and utilization for adaptation and mitigation. It is also clear that climate change is accelerating; taking almost catastrophic dimensions, the impacts are felt greater across the world than in the past thirty years. The impacts of climate change in the form of hurricanes, floods, and droughts affect the entire communities and presumably therefore, affect the lives of both women and men in different ways given their gender roles. There are uneven power relations in rural households which magnify the gaps and amplify the social vulnerability in either gender. Concern is emerging that the negotiations on climate change do not fully address the affected groups yet each of these groups is impacted by climate change in different ways. This paper addressed the impacts of climate change, the gender roles in adaptation process and different strategies used in a rural pastoralist community. The study was carried out in Samburu East District of Kenya using a mixed method approach. The study used survey method; 180 households were randomly selected being a homogenous pastoralist community; gender and age were further used during purposive sampling to select the required respondents. Focus group discussions, key informant interviews, life histories and observation were also used to collect qualitative data. The study findings indicated that the impacts of climate change were unequally felt along the gender lines in Samburu District. Unequal Power relations created social vulnerability. The Samburu community was patriarchal. Men unlike women had resources, Men made household decisions and women had no access to resources and had to wait for decisions to be made for them. The patriarchal nature of the community social setting magnified the vulnerability of women as compared to the men. The adaptation strategies showed that even though the women were more vulnerable, they had better strategies that led them to successfully cope with the situation. They achieved resilience faster than men. The study concluded that there was need to mainstream gender in the adaptation policies and legal frameworks so as to address the gender dynamics in climate change adaptation in rural households. The study confirmed that ethos and norms are key determinants of impact levels at the community social structure.