Virtue and vulnerability: Discourses on women, gender and climate change (original) (raw)
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Shifting discourses of climate change in India [2014]
Developing countries like India are under international pressure to sign a legally binding emissions treaty to avert catastrophic climatic change. Developing countries, however, have argued that any international agreement must be based on historic and per capita carbon emissions, with developed countries responsible for reducing their emissions first and funding mitigation and adaptation in other countries. Recently, however, several scholars have argued that Indian government climate change discourses are shifting, primarily by recognizing the "co-benefits" of an alignment between its development and climate change objectives, and by displaying increasing "flexibility" on mitigation targets. This study investigates the factors driving shifting Indian discourses of climate change by conducting and analyzing 25 interviews of Indian climate policy elites, including scientists, energy policy experts, leading government officials, journalists, business leaders, and advocates, in addition to analysis of articles published in Economic and Political Weekly (a prominent Indian policy journal), and reports published by the government and other agencies. Our analysis suggests that India's concerns about increasing energy access and security, along with newer concerns about vulnerability to climate change and the international leadership aspirations of the Indian government, along with emergence of new actors and institutions, has led to plurality of discourses, with potential implications for India's climate change policies.
Shifting discourses of climate change in India
Developing countries like India are under international pressure to sign a legally binding emissions treaty to avert catastrophic climatic change. Developing countries, however, have argued that any international agreement must be based on historic and per capita carbon emissions, with developed countries responsible for reducing their emissions first and funding mitigation and adaptation in other countries. Recently, however, several scholars have argued that Indian government climate change discourses are shifting, primarily by recognizing the "co-benefits" of an alignment between its development and climate change objectives, and by displaying increasing "flexibility" on mitigation targets. This study investigates the factors driving shifting Indian discourses of climate change by conducting and analyzing 25 interviews of Indian climate policy elites, including scientists, energy policy experts, leading government officials, journalists, business leaders, and advocates, in addition to analysis of articles published in Economic and Political Weekly (a prominent Indian policy journal), and reports published by the government and other agencies. Our analysis suggests that India's concerns about increasing energy access and security, along with newer concerns about vulnerability to climate change and the international leadership aspirations of the Indian government, along with emergence of new actors and institutions, has led to plurality of discourses, with potential implications for India's climate change policies.
Women and Climate Change: Linking Ground Perspectives to the Global Scenario
Indian Journal of Gender Studies, 2015
The 18th Conference of Parties (COP-18) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at Doha in 2012 decided to enhance the participation of women in climate negotiations. The decision was immediately dubbed the ‘Doha Miracle’, although it was not the first of its kind. The decision to recognise gender equality was first taken 11 years earlier at Marrakesh in 2001, but progress has been very slow. However, giving women representation in international negotiations will make little difference in the real world where women, who as a group are the most vulnerable to climate change, have no say in decision-making, even at the community level, although they are the ones who bear the brunt of climate change and the burden of adaptation. Discussing their strengths and vulnerabilities, this article suggests ways for their inclusion in order to benefit from their perspective and expertise by making the best use of existing institutions in India.
Isaksen, K. A. and Stokke, K. (2014). Changing Climate Discourse and Politics in India. Climate Change as Challenge and Opportunity for Diplomacy and Development. Geoforum. 57:110-119
This article contributes to the study of changing climate discourse and policy in emerging powers through a case study of climate discourse in India since 2007. Based on interviews with key actors in Indian climate politics and textual analysis, three general climate discourses-the Third World, Win-Win and Radical Green discourses-are identified. The discourses are characterised by different constructions of India's identity, interests, climate change exposure and climate policy orientation. At the most general level, the article finds that there has been a general discursive shift from the Third World discourse to the Win-Win discourse, and that the latter discourse is in broad agreement with the dominant international climate change discourse of ecological modernisation and thus supports an alignment between Indian and international climate politics. We also find, however, that India's domestic climate politics is marked by coexistence and tensions between the three climate discourses, producing a complex and at times contentious discursive politics over climate change, identity and development. The case study presented in this article moreover demonstrates how national interests are socially constructed and how changes in policy reflect changes in the dominant discourse.
Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation in India -A Gendered Perspective
Neuroquantology, 2022
Climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies should not only be concerned with providing new employment and livelihood opportunities but should also address the various structural barriers that heighten the vulnerability of the most affected individuals prohibiting them from adapting to changing climatic conditions and benefiting from policies and programmes designed to improve their climate resilience. This paper, therefore, focuses on the human rights consequences of climate induced disasters, particularly for young girls and women in the Indian context and how the inclusion of gendered vulnerabilities has often been neglected in climate change policies leaving young girls and women more vulnerable to climate change impacts. The primary objective of this paper is to highlight how climate change exacerbates pre-existing gender inequalities and also compound intersecting forms of discrimination against young girls and women belonging to poor and marginalized sections of the Indian society who are often affected disproportionately compared to men.
Climate Change – The Challenge and the Emerging Alternatives in India
This paper was presented to the "Economics For The Anthropocene Initiative" at York University. This paper explores the current state of affairs in regard to the Indian environment and its relationship with the larger political and economic undercurrents in the global north. It examines the Indian encounter with the west, giving its historical colonial context, as well as the economic changes taking place in India, currently, and how they are impacting the environment and its people. The second part deals with the efforts being made in India, at various levels – civil society, political, academic – to question and contest the ongoing neoliberal project.
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Climate change is one of the most critical global challenges of our times. Recent events are the emphatical demonstrations of growing vulnerability to climate change. Climate justice recognizes the climate crisis as an environmental and socioeconomic issue. It acknowledges the crisis, injustice, oppression, and interconnected struggles faced by different categories of mankind and finds solutions for excess emissions, and creates a fair and more just world for the future. Irrespective of creatures' birth and living conditions on the earth all are equally affected by the climate crisis. Introduction: Indian Vedas compare the environment to a family tie, like "The sky as the father, earth as mother and the space as a kid" if any of these got disturbed the entire family will get disturbed. Same as the human family, if any of the environmental elements got disturbed entire globe faces deadly consequences like climate change, global warming, and so on… 1 When nature is destroyed the ecological balance and human survival are getting highly imbalanced. Here one of the main environmental imbalances is climate change. Since a few years ago, the human race on earth is enduring tremendous climate change. Many countries are facing a rise in climatic contradictions in air, water, and land such as droughts, floods, hurricanes, acid rains, rising sea levels, melting icebergs, tornados, and so on… Eventually, small interest groups and multiple actors realized the emerging need to fight for environmental crisis and place sustainable developmental goals for future generations.
CLIMATE CHANGE, VULNERABILITY AND STRATEGIES FOR HUMAN SECURITY IN INDIA: AN EXPLORATION
Socio-economic and climate conditions are highly interdependent and interrelated; the two together determine the vulnerability of a society to climate change. Climate-related stresses include loss and salinization of agricultural land due to change in sea level, the likely changes in intensity of tropical cyclones and possibility of reduced productivity in coastal and oceanic fisheries in India. The impacts could be exacerbated by continued population growth in lowlying agricultural and urban areas. Appropriate adaptation strategies will alter the nature of the risk and will change the socially differentiated nature of vulnerability of the populations living in the hazardous regions. This article explores how human security approach to climate change can be considered a people oriented approach that emphasizes both equity issues and the growing connectivities among people and places. It focuses on the management of threats to the environmental, social and human rights of individuals and communities, while at the same time enhancing the capacity to respond to both change and uncertainty.