Moving Beyond Disciplinary Boundaries to Respond to Climate Change

Abstract

Gender blindness has been diagnosed and redressed in many social science disciplines as the case studies in this volume show. Many early studies of environment and climate change in the natural and the social sciences were similarly gender blind. But increasingly scholars, policymakers and practitioners are recognising that gender matters in the experience of, and responses to, climate change and in extreme weather events which are rising in frequency and severity. Moreover, women are increasingly prominent in local, regional and global fora in promoting climate justice and this is matched by a fertile, transdisciplinary field on gender, environment and climate change. Forging coalitions between natural and social scientists, between scholars, activists and policymakers is crucial at a time when we are experiencing a climate emergency of global proportions.