8. Gender, Climate Change, and Sustainable Development in Bangladesh

Climate change has become one of the most important global development issues in the current global political context. The impact of a changing climate is witnessed daily across nations north and south as a result of industrialization, greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, fossil fuel burning, and other human activities (Mignaquy, Gender perspectives on climate change, 2014: 3). It impedes basic human livelihoods to the extent that the lack of food, shelter, energy, water and problems in access to education and health impedes sustainable development. Climate change triggers other environmental problems affecting both food security and human security such as: flooding, storms, drought, desertification, deforestation, sea level rises, the melting of glaciers, increased soil salinity, and decreased availability of fresh water (Dankelman et al. Gender, climate change and human security: lessons from Bangladesh, Ghana and Senegal, ELIAMEP:WEDO, 1–71, 2008: 5). It is also a global threat to ensure sustainable international development. In the strategies for survival and sustainability, women hold a central role nowhere more so than in the global south where communities of the working poor struggle to meet basic needs and where climate change exacerbates existing constraints to sustainable development. This study will explore the gender-specific implications of climate change. Although climate change impacts globally, its impact is not equal everywhere due to geographical location, socioeconomic conditions, political will, poverty, and race and gender inequality. Consequently our case study Bangladesh is illustrative of the intersectionality of experience, needs and outcomes that need to be negotiated on the road to a global environmentally sustainable future