How empowering women and girls can help stop global warming

If we really want to address climate change, we need to make gender equity a reality, says writer and environmentalist Katharine Wilkinson. As part of Project Drawdown, Wilkinson has helped scour humanity's wisdom for solutions to draw down heat-trapping, climate-changing emissions: obvious things like renewable energy and sustainable diets and not so obvious ones, like the education and empowerment of women. In this informative, bold talk, she shares three key ways that equity for women and girls can help address climate change. "Drawing down emissions depends on rising up," Wilkinson says.

There are two powerful phenomena
unfolding on earth:

the rise of global warming

and the rise of women and girls.

The link between them is often overlooked,

but gender equity is a key answer
to our planetary challenge.

Let me explain.

For the last few years,

I have been working on an effort
called "Project Drawdown."

Our team has scoured humanity's wisdom

for solutions to draw down
heat-trapping, climate-changing emissions

in the atmosphere --

not "someday, maybe,
if we're lucky" solutions,

the 80 best practices and technologies

already in hand:

clean, renewable energy,
including solar and wind;

green buildings, both new and retrofitted;

efficient transportation
from Brazil to China;

thriving ecosystems through
protection and restoration;

reducing waste and reclaiming its value;

growing food in good ways
that regenerates soil;

shifting diets to less meat, more plants;

and equity for women and girls.

Gender and climate
are inextricably linked.

Drawing down emissions
depends on rising up.

First, a bit of context.

We are in a situation of urgency,
severity and scope

never before faced by humankind.

So far, our response isn't
anywhere close to adequate.

But you already know that.

You know it in your gut,

in your bones.

We are each part
of the planet's living systems,

knitted together with almost
7.7 billion human beings

and 1.8 million known species.

We can feel the connections between us.

We can feel the brokenness

and the closing window to heal it.

This earth, our home,

is telling us that a better way of being
must emerge, and fast.

In my experience, to have eyes wide open

is to hold a broken heart every day.

It's a grief that I rarely speak,

though my work calls
on the power of voice.

I remind myself that the heart
can simply break, or it can break open.

A broken-open heart is awake
and alive and calls for action.

It is regenerative, like nature,

reclaiming ruined ground, growing anew.

Life moves inexorably toward more life,

toward healing,

toward wholeness.

That's a fundamental ecological truth.

And we, all of us,

we are life force.

On the face of it, the primary link
between women, girls and a warming world

is not life but death.

Awareness is growing that climate impacts
hit women and girls hardest,

given existing vulnerabilities.

There is greater risk of displacement,

higher odds of being injured
or killed during a natural disaster.

Prolonged drought
can precipitate early marriage

as families contend with scarcity.

Floods can force last-resort prostitution

as women struggle to make ends meet.

The list goes on and goes wide.

These dynamics are most acute
under conditions of poverty,

from New Orleans to Nairobi.

Too often, the story ends here.

But not today.

Another empowering truth begs to be seen.

If we gain ground on gender equity,

we also gain ground
on addressing global warming.

This connection comes to light
in three key areas,

three areas where we can secure
the rights of women and girls,

shore up resilience

and avert emissions at the same time.

Women are the primary
farmers of the world.

They produce 60 to 80 percent
of food in lower-income countries,

often operating on fewer than five acres.

That's what the term "smallholder" means.

Compared with men, women smallholders
have less access to resources,

including land rights,

credit and capital, training,

tools and technology.

They farm as capably
and efficiently as men,

but this well-documented disparity
in resources and rights

means women produce less food
on the same amount of land.

Close those gaps,

and farm yields rise by 20 to 30 percent.

That means 20 to 30 percent more food
from the same garden or the same field.

The implications for hunger,
for health, for household income --

they're obvious.

Let's follow the thread to climate.

We humans need land to grow food.

Unfortunately, forests are often
cleared to supply it,

and that causes emissions
from deforestation.

But if existing farms produce enough food,

forests are less likely to be lost.

So there's a ripple effect.

Support women smallholders,

realize higher yields,

avoid deforestation

and sustain the life-giving
power of forests.

Project Drawdown estimates
that addressing inequity in agriculture

could prevent two billion tons
of emissions between now and 2050.

That's on par with the impact
household recycling can have globally.

Addressing this inequity
can also help women cope

with the challenges of growing food

as the climate changes.

There is life force in cultivation.

At last count,

130 million girls are still denied
their basic right to attend school.

Gaps are greatest
in secondary school classrooms.

Too many girls are missing
a vital foundation for life.

Education means better health
for women and their children,

better financial security,

greater agency at home and in society,

more capacity to navigate
a climate-changing world.

Education can mean options,
adaptability, strength.

It can also mean lower emissions.

For a variety of reasons,

when we have more years of education,

we typically choose to marry later

and to have fewer children.

So our families end up being smaller.

What happens at the individual level
adds up across the world and over time.

One by one by one,

the right to go to school impacts
how many human beings live on this planet

and impacts its living systems.

That's not why girls should be educated.

It's one meaningful outcome.

Education is one side of a coin.

The other is family planning:

access to high-quality,
voluntary reproductive health care.

To have children by choice
rather than chance

is a matter of autonomy and dignity.

Yet in the US,

45 percent of pregnancies are unintended.

Two hundred and fourteen million women
in lower-income countries

say they want to decide whether
and when to become pregnant

but aren't using contraception.

Listening to women's needs,

addressing those needs,

advancing equity and well-being:

those must be the aims
of family planning, period.

Curbing the growth of our human population

is a side effect, though a potent one.

It could dramatically reduce demand
for food, transportation, electricity,

buildings, goods and all the rest,

thereby reducing emissions.

Close the gaps on access
to education and family planning,

and by mid-century, we may find
one billion fewer people inhabiting earth

than we would if we do nothing more.

According to Project Drawdown,

one billion fewer people
could mean we avoid

nearly 120 billion tons of emissions.

At that level of impact,

gender equity is a top solution
to restore a climate fit for life.

At that level of impact,

gender equity is on par with wind turbines

and solar panels and forests.

There is life force in learning

and life force in choice.

Now, let me be clear:

this does not mean women and girls
are responsible for fixing everything.

(Laughter)

Though we probably will.

(Laughter)

(Applause)

Equity for women in agriculture,
education and family planning:

these are solutions within a system
of drawdown solutions.

Together, they comprise
a blueprint of possibility.

And let me be even clearer about this:

population cannot be seen in isolation
from production or consumption.

Some segments of the human family
cause exponentially greater harm,

while others suffer outsized injustice.

The most affluent --

we are the most accountable.

We have the most to do.

The gender-climate connection
extends beyond negative impacts

and beyond powerful solutions.

Women are vital voices
and agents for change on this planet,

and yet we're too often missing
or even barred from the proverbial table.

We're too often ignored
or silenced when we speak.

We are too often passed over

when plans are laid or investments made.

According to one analysis,

just 0.2 percent of philanthropic funds

go specifically towards women
and the environment,

merely 110 million dollars globally,

the sum spent by one man
on a single Basquiat painting last year.

These dynamics are not only unjust,
they are setting us up for failure.

To rapidly, radically reshape society,

we need every solution and every solver,

every mind,

every bit of heart,

every set of hands.

We often crave a simple call to action,

but this challenge demands
more than a fact sheet

and more than a checklist.

We need to function
more like an ecosystem,

finding strength in our diversity.

You know what your superpowers are.

You're an educator, farmer, healer,
creator, campaigner, wisdom-keeper.

How might you link arms where you are

to move solutions forward?

There is one role I want to ask
that all of you play:

the role of messenger.

This is a time of great awakening.

We need to break the silence
around the condition of our planet;

move beyond manufactured debates
about climate science;

share solutions;

speak truth with a broken-open heart;

teach that to address climate change,
we must make gender equity a reality.

And in the face of
a seemingly impossible challenge,

women and girls are
a fierce source of possibility.

It is a magnificent thing to be alive

in a moment that matters so much.

This earth,

our home,

is calling for us to be bold,

reminding us we are all
in this together --

women, men,

people of all gender identities,

all beings.

We are life force,

one earth,

one chance.

Let's seize it.

Thank you.

(Applause)