ROME (AP) — Women who run farms and rural households in poor countries are suffering more from climate change and face discrimination as they try to adapt to other sources of income in times of crisis, the United Nations warned Tuesday.
A new FAO report, “The Unfair Climate,” found that female-headed rural households lose an average of 8% more income during heat waves and 3% more income during floods than households headed by men.
This inequality corresponds to a per capita reduction of $83 due to heat stroke and $35 due to flooding, for an annual total of $37 billion and $16 billion in poor countries, respectively, according to its United Nations agency report for food and agriculture.
“Given the significant differences in agricultural production and wages between men and women, the study suggests that climate change will significantly widen these differences in the coming years if left unaddressed,” the FAO said.
The Rome-based FAO compiled its statistics after surveying 100,000 rural households in 24 low- and middle-income countries around the world. The agency then compared this data with 70 years of temperature and precipitation information.
In an important detail, the report found that few government policies to combat climate change and promote adaptation strategies take into account the particular vulnerabilities of rural women and youth.
Only 6% of the more than 4,000 proposals reviewed for countries' national climate adaptation plans mentioned women.
The document noted that in many poor countries, women face discrimination in land rights or decisions about their work. As they seek to diversify their sources of income due to climate shocks that reduce crop and livestock productivity, they also face discrimination in obtaining information, finance and technology.
The report called for specific strategies to address the particular vulnerability of rural female-headed households.
“Social differences based on location, wealth, gender and age have a strong but little-understood influence on the vulnerability of rural populations to the impacts of the climate crisis,” said FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu.
“These results underscore the urgent need to devote significantly more financial resources and policy attention to issues of inclusivity and resilience in national and global climate action,” he added.