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A new Nordic web portal explains links between climate change and gender equality

A new web portal with a focus on climate change and gender equality has been released. The web portal "Equal Climate - Gender and Climate Change from a Nordic Perspective" gives views on how integrating a gender perspective can bring about more efficient solutions for sustainable development and climate change.

Nov 01, 2011
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The President of the Republic, Tarja Halonen, highlights in her article that in order to save the planet for future generations, we need to ensure gender equality.

Photographer
Johannes Jansson/norden.org

The portal gives information on the links between gender, traffic, energy, consumption and nutrition. Women and men have different kinds of consumer habits, recreational activities and attitudes towards climate issues. Men favour for example technical solutions, while women prefer changing their own behaviour.

The report lists concrete guidelines that help citizens, politicians and decision-makers to take gender and climate change into account in their actions

The web portal also focuses on climate-change and gender-related activities in the Nordic countries, the Faeroe Islands, Greenland and the Åland Islands.

The portal lists good examples from Nordic NGOs and enterprises that have integrated the gender perspective into their work against climate change. There are also concrete guidelines that help citizens, politicians and decision-makers to take gender and climate change into account in their actions.

The Nordic equality ministers began their cooperation on climate change in 2008. In their meeting in Helsinki in September 2011, the equality ministers from the Nordic countries, the Åland Islands, Greenland and the Faeroe Islandscalled for measures to integrate the gender perspective in all climate work.

The President of the Republic, Tarja Halonen, highlights in her article that in order to save the planet for future generations, we need to ensure gender equality. Women's participation is not only a question of human rights; it also creates more effective solutions that serve a greater proportion of the population.

In was stated in the side-event panel discussion that more research is needed on the links between gender equality and climate change. It is also important to make use of the information available and, thus, reinforce the climate change work with the gender perspective.

The web portal has been developed in gender-equality cooperation of Nordic Council of Ministers, and it is part of the Finnish Presidency of the Nordic Council of Ministers in 2011.

See more at http://equalclimate.org/

Contacts

Annamari Asikainen, Senior Officer, Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, tel. +358 505125617, forename.surname@stm.fi

Mia Mäkinen, Project Coordinator, Finnish National Institute for Health and Welfare, tel. +358 206107261, mia.k.makinen@thl.fi


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