WOMEN’S VULNERABILITY TO CLIMATE CHANGE

International Women’s Day is celebrated on March 8. It is an international day highlighting the fight for women’s rights and in particular for the end of inequalities.

Women’s vulnerability to climate change results from several social, economic and cultural factors. The first factor is the conditions of poverty. Of the 1.3 billion people living in conditions of poverty, 70% are women. In urban areas, 40% of the poorest households are headed by women. While women play a key role in global food production (50-80%), they own less than 10% of the land. Women are predominantly found among the 1.5 billion people who live on $1 a day or less according to the UN. Moreover, the gap grows  between women and men caught in the cycle of poverty. Worldwide, women earn, on average, just over 50% of what men earn. The majority of the world’s poor are therefore women. On a global scale, they are therefore the most affected by climate change.

IPCC experts highlights the importance of giving more power to women, who could change agricultural and consumption practices within families. Women are among the main victims of climate change, but also in the front line to fight against its effects thanks to their important place in agriculture. When creating and introducing technologies to mitigate the effects of climate change, funding agencies and donors should also take into account the specific situations of women and strive to remove the economic, social and cultural barriers that prevent women to benefit from and use them. Women’s participation in the development of new technologies can provide assurance that they will be responsive, appropriate and sustainable. At the national level, efforts should be made to mainstream gender into national policies and strategies as well as into projects related to sustainable development and climate change.

Science work within the DATA TERRA research infrastructure is directly linked to climate issues. Facilitating access to reliable space data, soil and in situ data related to the Earth system is a key challenge for DATA TERRA. Aimed at the scientific community as well as public and socio-economic players, multi-source data, products and services are accessible through a distributed infrastructure of data and services. Coordination and integration of Earth system global and local information is one of DATA TERRA’s major ambitions, on a national scale as well as on a European and international scale.

Discover the portraits of researchers invested in advancing science in the Earth System and ENvironment fields:

• • Anne Jolly
    R&D officer at the National Forestry Office and moderator of the CES Changes and health of temperate forests of the Theia hub dedicated to continental surfaces.

  • Cathy Boone
    Head of data center and ESPRI services in the Aeris hub dedicated to the atmosphere.

  • Cathy Clerbaux (CNRS silver medal)
    CNRS research director at LATMOS (atmospheres, environments, space observations laboratory).

  • Anne Puissant
    Director of the Theia hub dedicated to continental surfaces. She also leads a new working group dedicated to Training within IR DATA TERRA

  • Silvia Valero
    Lecturer in Computer Science at Paul Sabatier University – IUT’A, Toulouse

  • Valérie Demarez
    Valérie Demarez leads the Irrigation Scientific Expertise Center (CES) within the framework of the Theia hub.

  • Annelise Tran
    AnneLise Tran runs the Scientific Expertise Center (CES) “Risks of Infectious Diseases” within the framework of the Theia hub.
  • Laure Rupioz and Aurélie Michel
    They lead the Scientific Expertise Center (CES) Surface temperatures and emissivity. The latter has made available the Thermocity product for the detection of heat islands.

  • Anne Richer-de-Forges
    She leads the Scientific Expertise Center (CES) Digital Soil Mapping

  • Catherine Schmechtig
    Research engineer at the CNRS, she works on oceanographic data essential to understanding the effects of climate change.

  • Sabine Schmidt
    Scientific Director of the Odatis Cluster, which federates data management activities and scientific expertise in oceanography at the national level. She also leads the Science working group of IR DATA TERRA.