Death by Degrees: Taking a Feminist Hard Look at the 2° Climate Policy

Seager, Joni

doi:10.7146/kkf.v0i3-4.27968

Cited by 27 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…Two special issues of the international journal Gender and Development (in 2002 and 2009, respectively) have helped to provide seminal reference points and analyses of the core issues, framing a rich discourse about gender and climate that includes academic researchers, policymakers, donor agencies, governments, NGOs, and activists from civil society (Masika, 2002;Denton, 2002;Nelson et al, 2002;Dankelman, 2002;Lambrou and Piana, 2006;Brody et al, 2008;Terry, 2009;Seager, 2009a;Sweetman, 2009;Enarson and Chakraboti, 2009;Dankelman, 2010;Aguilar, 2010;MacGregor, 2010;Arora-Jonsson, 2011;Alston and Whittenbury, 2012;Sultana, 2014;WHO, 2014). Contributions made through robust transnational activist networks such as GenderCC and the Gender and Disaster Network also inform debates about gender and climate change issues.…”

Section: Women Gender and Climate Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Gender and climate change in the Indian Himalayas: global threats, local vulnerabilities, and livelihood diversification at the Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve

Ogra

Badola

2015

Earth Syst. Dynam.

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Abstract. Global climate change has numerous implications for members of mountain communities who feel the impacts in both physical and social dimensions. In the western Himalayas of India, a majority of residents maintain a livelihood strategy that includes a combination of subsistence or small-scale agriculture, livestock rearing, seasonal or long-term migration, and localized natural resource extraction. While warming temperatures, irregular patterns of precipitation and snowmelt, and changing biological systems present challenges to the viability of these traditional livelihood portfolios in general, we find that climate change is also undermining local communities' livelihood assets in gender-specific ways. In this paper, we present a case study from the Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve (Uttarakhand, India) that both outlines the implications of climate change for women farmers in the area and highlights the potential for ecotourism (as a form of livelihood diversification) to strengthen both key livelihood assets of women and local communities' adaptive capacity more broadly. The paper intentionally employs a categorical focus on women but also addresses issues of inter-group and gender diversity. With this special issue in mind, suggestions for related research are proposed for consideration by climate scientists and social systems and/or policy modelers seeking to support gender justice through socially transformative perspectives and frameworks.

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Section: Women Gender and Climate Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Gender and climate change in the Indian Himalayas: global threats, local vulnerabilities, and livelihood diversification at the Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve

Ogra

Badola

2015

Earth Syst. Dynam.

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“…Analogous to Seager's [14] and Liverman's [15] claims with respect to differential interpretations of dangerous interference, this unevenness epitomizes geographies of privilege, power, and inequality. For the LDCs and AOSIS, where impacts are already felt most severely, a 1.5°C target enshrined in a 2015 agreement would not only constitute a legally binding goal.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Joni Seager, for instance, demonstrates how notions of acceptability always mirror 'a prism of privilege, power, and geography' [14]. She argues that those for whom a 2°C target appears to be a relatively safe bet are the richer countries in temperate latitudes, as well as politicians and economists from the global North deeply entrenched in a masculinized rationality that nature can be controlled and that in the imminent climate race with inevitable winners and losers they will be among the former.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Seager rejects the notion of a 2°C target as a real geophysical threshold that neatly distinguishes between little and much danger; instead, she argues that the target represents the point 'when global warming "comes" home to the rich world, …. when "their" [the others'] problems are likely to become "ours"' [14]. Diana Liverman [15] also emphasizes the uneven spatial geographies associated with global danger levels as even small temperature rises and other risks threatening vulnerable livelihoods in one locale would be offset by gains and benefits somewhere else.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Most problematically, the notion of a scientifically sound and globally tractable 2°C target is often erroneously mapped onto Article 2 of the UNFCCC; an implied connection is made between 2°and 'dangerous' , although no specific number is provided in the convention's text [14]. In fact, the convention does not define a dangerous level for global warming or a limit for GHG concentrations, arguably on purpose.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

1.5°C or 2°C: a conduit’s view from the science-policy interface at COP20 in Lima, Peru

Tschakert

2015

Clim Chang Responses

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An average global 2°C warming compared to pre-industrial times is commonly understood as the most important target in climate policy negotiations. It is a temperature target indicative of a fiercely debated threshold between what some consider acceptable warming and warming that implies dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system and hence to be avoided. Although this 2°C target has been officially endorsed as scientifically sound and justified in the Copenhagen Report issued by the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2009, the large majority of countries (over two-thirds) that have signed and ratified the UNFCCC strongly object to this target as the core of the long-term goal of keeping temperatures below a certain danger level. Instead, they promote a 1.5°C target as a more adequate limit for dangerous interference. At COP16 in Cancun, parties to the convention recognized the need to consider strengthening the long-term global goal in the so-called 2013-2015 Review, given improved scientific knowledge, including the possible adoption of the 1.5°C target. In this perspective piece, I examine the discussions of a structured expert dialogue (SED) between selected Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) authors, myself included, and parties to the convention to assess the adequacy of the long-term goal. I pay particular attention to the uneven geographies and power differentials that lay behind the ongoing political debate regarding an adequate target for protecting ecosystems, food security, and sustainable development.

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The Paris Agreement and climate justice: inequitable impacts of sea level rise associated with temperature targets

Sadai

Spector

DeConto

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are causing unprecedented changes to the climate. In 2015, at the United Nations (UN) Conference of the Parties in Paris, France, countries agreed to limit the global mean surface temperature (GMST) increase to 2°C above preindustrial levels, and to pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C. Due to the long-term irreversibility of sea level rise (SLR), risks to island and coastal populations are not well encapsulated by the goal of limiting GMST warming by 2100. This paper reviews and synthesizes the climate justice implications of temperature targets in light of our increasing understanding of the spatially variable impact and long temporal commitment to rising seas. In particular we highlight the impact that SLR will have on island states and the role of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) in UN climate negotiations. As a case study we review dual impacts from the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) under a changing climate: 1) recent climate and ice sheet modeling shows that Antarctic melt has the potential to cause rapid SLR with a distinct spatial pattern leading to AOSIS nations experiencing SLR at least 11% higher than the global average and up to 33% higher; and 2) future ice sheet melt will result in a negative feedback on GMST, thus delaying temperature rise. When considering these impacts in conjunction, justice concerns associated with the Paris Agreement are exacerbated. This case study demonstrates that mitigation policies should consider climate impacts in addition to GMST, particularly sea level rise.

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Death by Degrees: Taking a Feminist Hard Look at the 2° Climate Policy

Cited by 27 publications

References 5 publications

Gender and climate change in the Indian Himalayas: global threats, local vulnerabilities, and livelihood diversification at the Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve

Gender and climate change in the Indian Himalayas: global threats, local vulnerabilities, and livelihood diversification at the Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve

1.5°C or 2°C: a conduit’s view from the science-policy interface at COP20 in Lima, Peru

The Paris Agreement and climate justice: inequitable impacts of sea level rise associated with temperature targets

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