Gender, climate change and urbanisation: Revisiting the links

Overview

The Bartlett’s Development Planning Unit (DPU, University College London) and Genre en Action have embarked on a research project to examine the links between gender, climate change and urbanisation. Indeed, whilst debates on climate change have clearly evolved over the years, the gendered and urban components of that debate have only recently appeared as two significant domains of exploration.

There is a growing body of work exploring the relationships between gender and climate change, gender and urbanisation or indeed the links between urbanisation and climate change. However, the ways in which the cross-cutting issues of gender and climate change intersect with urbanisation processes specifically has been little explored.

What does bringing the three areas of focus together offer to our understandings of urbanisation, to the politics of climate change or indeed to gender equality? How does this triangular relation help refine or boost current calls for a reorientation of climate change activism beyond resilience and towards climate justice? What are the consequences of revisiting this link for strategic and just interventions in the context of the urban Anthropocene?

The DPU and Genre en Action have produced a short film to start addressing these policy makers and academics and to compare their perceptions of these cross-cutting themes. The film is available in the three above languages.

Events and Resources

Event: Gender, climate change and urbanisation: Revisiting the links / 21st October 2015

Debates on climate change have evolved significantly over the last decades but only recently has the urban and gendered nature of this process become distinct and significant components of discussions. However, the intersection of the three elements - or the ‘gendered’ nature of climate change in urban areas - remains little explored in our increasingly urbanising world.

Ahead of the United Nations COP21 - Paris Climate Conference, this event will broach the increasingly urgent matter through the projection of a short film, followed by an expert panel debate.

Panel:

· Claudy Vouhé - Co-founder of the Francophone network Genre en Action

· Julian Walker - Senior Lecturer, Development Planning Unit, UCL

· Virginie Le Masson - Research Officer, Overseas Development Institute

· Caren Levy – Senior Lecturer, The Bartlett Development Planning Unit, UCL

Team and Partners

This project has been developed by The Bartlett’s Development Planning Unit (DPU, University College London) and Genre en Action, with support from the Institut Français de Londres. The team of the project is composed by Barbara Lipietz, Claudy Vouhé, Camila Cociña, Caren Levy, Adriana Allenand Julian Walker.

So far, the interviews and contributions to this project include Penda Diouf (Observatoire Genre et Développement de Saint-Louis, Senegal); Marie Dominique de Suremain (ONG Enda Colombie / Genre en Action); Taibat Lawanson (University of Lagos, Nigeria); Virginie Le Masson (Overseas Development Institute); Liliana Miranda (Foro Ciudades para la Vida, Peru); Susan Parnell (African Centre for Cities, Cape Town, South Africa); and Linda Zilbert (Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo, Peru).