Women are at the forefront of the climate change battle, but how are their concerns addressed international negotiations? Environmental changes -- for example, water shortage and its ensuing migrations -- are particularly rough on pregnant women and their children. On this Blog Action Day I'd like to draw your attention to the fact that the gender perspective is not discussed nearly enough when treaties on the environment are constructed and that's not right. Because of discrimination and poverty, women are more adversely affected by climate change than men. In Kenya, for example, some women spend up to eight hours a day in search of water. Fetching water, that staple of life that we take for granted, may use up to 85% of a woman's daily energy intake. In drought, which now affects Kenya, you can imagine the impact.

Women's voices continue to go unheard at the highest levels of environmental negotiation. "Extreme events and environmental degradation become a women's issue because we are responsible for providing for the whole community," Anna Pinto, programme director with the Centre for Organisation, Research and Education, told IRIN. "When the environment degrades it becomes more of a women's problem. These issues need to be genderised on behalf of everyone."

Copenhagen will no doubt be a monumentous environmental event, particularly because we now have a President who doesn't drag his feet on the issue. Still, we ask, if scientific, technical and economic and geographic considerations are taken into account, then why not also the dimension of gender? Population-wise, the largest stakeholders on the planet, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton likes to reminds us, are women. Gender analysis ought to be applied to all international activity on climate change so that the specific needs of men and women are identified and addressed.

[Image: WomenWatch]