COP18 (27/11/12) – Trish Glazebrook, Professor at the University of North Texas talks about the higher impacts of climate change felt by women. She says that 70% of farmers globally are women, and often working as subsistence farmers the have a invisibility that means they are not getting the help they need to respond to climate change.

She talks about the challenges, specifically facing women, whose daily workload is often 40-60% greater than that of men, and says in the region she works in Ghana, women grow the crops, look after the children and are often the main healthcare worker of the family.

She also talks of the need to include women as agents of change. Making the choices both at the household level, and as farmers they are able to make decisions which could drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

She warns that if women’s contribution to emissions is not accounted for then we will not achieve our climate goals.

While she talks about research which shows women are receptive to climate change mitigation, she says in the villages she works with in Ghana, the impacts are so severe that adaptation is still the focus.