Human, gender and environmental security at risk from climate change

Abstract

This chapter analyses the risks of extreme hydrometeorological events with the concept of dual vulnerability: environmental and social vulnerability, which focuses on people affected by global environmental change and climate change. The understanding of dual vulnerability orientates the policy to promote resilience that may mitigate impacts of extreme events, since it is only recently that the factors that create, increase or limit risks have been analysed. Improving adaptation and mitigation may reduce the impact of disasters and the loss of life and livelihood. This chapter explores an integrated human, gender and environmental—a HUGE—security approach. The gender perspective allows the differential susceptibility between men and women during an extreme event to be understood, which reflects gender relations consolidated during thousands of years by the patriarchal system characterized by violence, authoritarianism, exclusion and discrimination. This integrated security opens analytical perspectives for policy reflections that could enhance resilience and facilitate the empowerment of men and women before, during, and after a disaster. Governments will achieve greater success in disaster management when they promote participatory governance where authoritarian arenas, agendas, activities and actors are replaced, the dual vulnerability addressed, and adaptation and resilience embraced.