Climate Change Deal Must Aim to Help Women, U.N. Says

Typography
Women bear the brunt of drought, rising seas, melting glaciers and other effects of climate change but are mostly ignored in the debate over how to halt it, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) said today. Because women are often the poorest in society and have less power over their lives, less recognition of economic worth, and bear the brunt of raising children, they suffer more.

LONDON - Women bear the brunt of drought, rising seas, melting glaciers and other effects of climate change but are mostly ignored in the debate over how to halt it, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) said today.

In its 2009 state of the world population report, the agency said the world's poor are the most vulnerable to climate change and the majority of the 1.5 billion people living on $1.0 a day or less are women.

"Poor women in poor countries are among the hardest hit by climate change, even though they contributed the least to it," said UNFPA executive director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid.

World leaders are due to meet at a U.N. global warming summit in Copenhagen in December and the U.N. agency urged them to think about how much women are harmed by climate change and how much they could be engaged in the fight against it.

Article continues: http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSLG420077

!ADVERTISEMENT!