Building Women's Leadership On Climate Crucial, Jharkhand Women Show The Way!

World leaders, activists, civil society movements, researchers and policy makers came together to deliberate on the much crucial, yet largely neglected intersection of Gender and Climate at the COP 27 held in Egypt. November 14 was celebrated as Gender Day at COP 27 and several themes within the intersection were discussed - from women's leadership on climate to women's livelihoods and climate resilience.

One of the key takeaways from the deliberations was the need to bring the issues of women vis-a-vis climate change to the fore and look at women as agents of change in the process of climate resilience rather than merely focusing on the vulnerabilities that they are subjected to.

At a time when the deliberations were taking place in Egypt, nearly 5,000 kilometers away, 49-year-old Suman Verma from Lohardaga was busy collectivizing women in her neighbourhood over the issue of clean cooking.

Through the support and mentorship of Jharkhand based NGOs Hope and Samvad, Suman and hundreds of other women in the remotest villages of Lohardaga, Dhanbad and Bokaro have become climate leaders and are working towards building awareness on air pollution and climate change.

Fostering Women's Leadership Around Climate

Over the last one year, women in Jharkhand have conducted several awareness sessions on air pollution and the impact it has specifically on the health of women and have also participated in large convenings of mothers where they learnt about the nuances of these issues through doctors and policy experts.

For instance, Suman has been actively involved in conducting awareness sessions with women in Lohardaga where she mainly focuses on the issue of household air pollution from chulhas (brick stoves) and the disastrous impact that it has on women's health and well being.

"At first I thought that I had no experience on climate and had little confidence. But when we actually started working and getting trained, we got to know about the impact of climate change and specifically about the different ways in which air pollution can affect the health of individuals, especially women and children. This motivated many like me to reach out to more women and create awareness around the issue. Every second household in our village has asthma patients. Especially the women in the households face the double burden of pollution as they suffer from bad air on the outside and the toxic fumes emerging from biomass in their kitchens," she added.

During the initial few months since the women started working on the issue, they largely focused on building basic climate literacy in their neighbourhoods by simplifying the impacts of air pollution on a day to day basis in their local language and context.

As they started speaking to more women and fellow residents in their village, they were able to understand the barriers that exist in addressing the issues. For instance, while working on the issue of biomass burning, they realized that while access and affordability towards cleaner solutions such as LPG is a key barrier in people's transition towards clean cooking, they also realised that behaviours and social beliefs play a crucial role in the process.

To begin with, they struggled to first get inside the kitchens to be able to see how and where fellow women cook. "Kitchens are inside the house and not even clearly visible. Nobody was allowing us to see the kitchen so we had to build a relationship with people first. Then there were beliefs about food cooked on chulhas being tastier and healthier and fears around the use of LPG. This made us aware of the fact that affordability and access are not the only barriers. The way people perceive an issue from their cultural contexts is also important," said Poonam Mahto from Lohardaga.

Changing the Narrative

A recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on adaptation pathways underlined that the discourse around climate change is still largely male dominated. "An assessment of 4,000 plus literature sources revealed that most literature was gender regressive. Four out of the nine sectors in the space were found to be gender regressive," said Dr. Anjali Prakash, author, IPCC.

At first, when the women ventured out of their homes for their work, they were frowned upon. Slowly, as they started speaking to people, the acceptance around their presence has increased substantially according to them.

In Dhanbad and Bokaro for instance, where women are trained to monitor air quality using low cost portable monitors, they are no longer questioned about their intentions. "First when we went near a coal washery or on a busy street, men would typically ask us what we were doing in a very condescending manner. But now that they know what they do and think that it is in the larger good, they are cooperative," said Jyoti Kumari from Bokaro.

The Silver Lining

While clear cut solutions are not always in sight, women are now trying to imagine the ways in which they can build resilience of those around them and are proposing some actionable points that can help address some key concerns such as air pollution.

The women led a series of consultations with community members and local decision makers in their respective panchayats to come up with solutions to household air pollution primarily caused by biomass burning. The consultations resulted in several ideas for solutions, one such idea is to link livelihoods to clean cooking, by incentivising women Self Help Groups (SHGs) and boosting livelihoods through small industries and other employment opportunities to make the shift to clean cooking. Similarly, some women also proposed making women important stakeholders in the service delivery process for cleaner fuels such as LPG.

Decentralising the delivery to ensure that fuel is available easily in a nearby set up along with recruiting women to coordinate its operations thus incentivising them and also ensuring higher compliance is another idea that they proposed. Many women are also exploring alternatives such as setting up biogas plants at the community level to move away from traditional biomass.

It is clear to them that this is a long haul but as they learn more about the issue, they also see how much they can do in this space. They are now keen to build their leadership and capacity on climate and ultimately contribute for a cleaner, greener future for the generations to come!

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