What does gender equality have to do with climate change?

For International Women’s day, the Meliora Podcast from the Sustainability & Resilience Institute (SRI) at our University is guest hosted by SRI team members Alice Brock and Grace Compton (pictured) who wanted to explore the intersection between Gender and Climate Change.

In the episode they discuss the Sustainable Development Goal 5 on Gender Equality, how the impacts and burden of climate change disproportionately affect women, and what can be done to tackle this, including the role of policy makers and women in leadership.

Grace and Alice speak with two women working to further these solutions at the University.

WSI Deputy Director, Professor Pauline Leonard talks about her research on gender and sustainable transport, and Sue Littlemore, Director of Civic & Arts, speaks about her experience of male bias throughout her career as a senior leader. The discussion covers the importance of taking an intersectional approach to understanding the scale of the challenge, as women’s lived experiences vary greatly based
on characteristics such as race, income, and disabilities.

Lily Kilner and Sophie Green, final year students at the University, join the hosts to talk about their perspectives on the connections between climate change, gender roles and responsibility to implement more sustainable behaviours.

This episode asks those working in research to consider how they are including the experiences and voices of women in their research on drivers of sustainable development and tackling climate change.