23African Climate Scientist: “Women Bear the Brunt of Climate Change”
African Climate Scientist Susan Chomba
23African Climate Scientist: “Women Bear the Brunt of Climate Change”
African Climate Scientist Susan Chomba
African Climate Scientist: “Women Bear the Brunt of Climate Change”
12 hours ago Eric Worrall 21 Comments
Essay by Eric Worrall
Climate Scientist Susan Chomba thinks the focus on renewable energy development is ignoring on the ground poverty issues.
‘Women bear the biggest brunt of climate change,’ says climate scientist Susan Chomba
She leads a team of 100 at a non-profit with operations across Africa and says climate has been seen through a male perspective for too long
Neha Wadekar in Baringo county, Kenya
Thu 22 Jun 2023 01.00 AEST
Susan Chomba glares out the window of the Prado Land Cruiser at dozens of motorcycles speeding in the opposite direction. Each motorcycle carries at least five bags of charcoal and for every bag, at least three medium-sized acacia trees must be chopped down and burned. Charcoal production is banned in Kenya, but is still widely used for domestic heat and cooking.
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Roughly 12% of the world’s top climate scientists are women and fewer than one percent are from Africa – a continent hard hit by climate change. “If you look at the way the world operates, it’s almost blind to the fact that women bear the biggest burden and brunt of climate change,” Chomba says. That Chomba is an African woman in such a key role is potentially revolutionary, especially because she goes out of her way to solicit the views of those most affected and often most unheard – local farmers, community elders and, notably, women.
“The way climate is seen in the world, it’s seen very much from a masculine perspective,” Chomba says. For example, while male climate scientists focus heavily on developing renewable sources of energy to replace fossil fuels like oil and gas, Chomba believes they pay far less attention to the hundreds of millions of women worldwide who are burning wood for tasks like cooking. Incorporating the perspectives of women – particularly poor, rural women – would better ensure comprehensive solutions, she says.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/21/climate-scientists-susan-chomba-africa
If you shear away the climate rhetoric, Chomba has a point. A big solar farm does nothing to help people struggling to get enough water for themselves or their crops, or sacrificing their last trees for charcoal to sell, because they have no other means of income.
A few wells, maybe some microfinance loans to say buy a few sewing machines or whatever it is they need to address their basic problems, and perhaps some careful restoration of cover trees, would probably do a lot more for these people than a shiny new renewable installation next door to the Presidential Palace.
It’s a shame Chomba chose to dress these fundamental issues in liberal talking points. Maybe she has spent too much time hanging out with liberals? The liberal talking points upset me, my initial reaction to the article was hostile. This started out as a very different essay, until I reread what she said a few times.