The impact of climate change-- floods, drought, extreme weather, growing food/water insecurity etc., disproportionately affect the world's 1.3 billion poor, the majority of whom are women. 70 per cent of fatalities from 2004 Asian tsunami and 96 per cent of the 2014 Solomon Island floods were women and children. Nevertheless, women are contributing to climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts in many countries through innovation and localised solutions to build resilient communities. Climate change may be framed as a universal human rights imperative, a pervasive economic strain and a global security threat. Women are usually the first responders in community responses to natural disasters, leaders in disaster related risk-reduction and contribute to post disaster recovery. Women's empowerment and representation at all levels of leadership and across all sectors of society is not an option, but an absolute necessity. There is strong focus on gender equality and women's empowerment in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development both in the form of a dedicated Goal on Gender Equality (SDG5) and a cross-cutting theme with more than 30 related gender targets across the SDGs. Increasing global political commitment to address gender and climate change is manifested through the Gender Action Plan (GAP) of the UN Framework Conference on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This was adopted at the Conference of Parties (COP23) in 2017 under the Lima Work Programme on Gender (LWPG). It seeks to advance women's full participation, promote gender-responsive climate policy and mainstream gender in climate adaptation, mitigation and finance. Though Bangladesh as current Chair of the 48-member Climate Vulnerable Form (CVF) of the climate-threatened nations is working hard to involve women for combating adverse impacts of climate change, much more needs to be done to effectively empower our rural women.
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