1. Yasmeen Lari

As Pakistan’s first female architect, Yasmeen Lari’s prolific career, remarkable accolades, and unwavering commitment to humanitarian work earn her a rightful place as one of the foremost environmentalists of our time. Born in Dera Ghazi Khan, Pakistan, in 1941, she spent her initial years in Lahore before moving to London with her family, where she graduated from the Oxford Brooks School of Architecture. She returned to Pakistan at the age of 23 with her husband and established her architecture firm, Lari Associates. For 36 years, she worked on prestigious corporate and state-commissioned projects, from Karachi’s finance and trade center to hotels. 

Image Credit: BBC News

She retired in 2000 to focus on writing and founded the Heritage Foundation. The devastating earthquake of 2005 and the recurring floods that plague the country every few years, resulting from climate change, profoundly impacted her. This experience sparked a deep sense of urgency to aid those in need. 

Lari moved on to work closely with displaced families, helping them rebuild their homes with materials like mud, stone, lime, and wood salvaged from the surrounding debris. Working with volunteers, she trained local people on how to use locally sourced materials to rebuild, following the principles of low cost, zero carbon, and zero waste. She criticizes the ‘international colonial charity model’ and believes that making people co-creators of their homes and lives after a disaster is both healing and economical. 

She has built more than 45,000 zero-carbon shelters in areas affected by natural disasters, developed ‘barefoot social architecture’ for impoverished communities in Sindh province, trained the craftsmen and women of Makli in Sindh, and built over 60,000 uniquely designed chulahs, smokeless earthen ovens for the community. She has numerous accolades to her name, from the Jane Drew Prize to the RIBA Royal Gold Medal, but not at the cost of her conscientiousness. Just this March, she rejected the Israeli Wolf Foundation Prize in Architecture with its $100,000 prize money, citing the genocide in Gaza, stating: “I’ve spent much of my life helping refugees, albeit climate migrants, and Gaza is unfortunately now one of the worst situations in terms of displacement.”

2. Sumaira Abdulali

With India’s rich biodiversity and legacy of environmental stewardship under threat from climate change and capitalism, many Indians are actively fighting to protect it. Hailing from a family of environmentalists and anti-colonial activists, Sumaira Abdulali stands as one of the foremost of these activists. Born in 1961 in Mumbai, Sumaira chose to learn from her life experiences instead of a typical college experience. It was the issue of noise pollution that first ignited her passion. 

Dubbed the ‘Minister of Noise’, Sumaira founded the Awaaz Foundation and raised awareness about the damaging effects of the ever-increasing urban noise pollution. She lobbied for the demarcation of silence zones, control of noise from vehicles, and stricter enforcement of Noise Pollution Rules. 

Image Credit: Sachinvenga via Wikimedia Commons

Her relentless fight against illegal sand mining made her stand out as a fearless justice-driven advocate. Sand, often seen as an abundant resource, is one of the most extracted natural materials after water. Yet, for years, its extraction went unchecked, particularly along the coastal areas of Maharashtra, where powerful sand mafias operated with impunity. 

Sumaira was the first to recognize the environmental and social dangers posed by illegal sand mining and campaigned to end it. It was a brutal physical assault by the sand miners, resulting in her hospitalization, that became her turning point. With a stronger resolve, she founded the Movement against Intimidation, Threat and Revenge against Activists (MITRA) to protect activists against unchecked violence. She continued gathering evidence against the wealthy capitalists and politicians who controlled the sand-mining companies, eventually filing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) with the Bombay High Court, resulting in the first-ever court order against sand mining in the region. 

Her opponents retaliated by attempting to drive her car down a cliff, an assassination attempt she miraculously survived. Her tireless work bore fruition when she successfully brought this issue on the UNEP’s radar through the 2012 Conference of Parties of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity in Hyderabad, and contributed to the production of Sand Wars, a documentary film on the global sand crisis, which won numerous awards and inspired the UNEP to to publish a Global Environmental Alert in March 2014 titled “Sand: Rarer Than One Thinks.” 

Sumaira herself has been awarded the Mother Teresa Award for Social Justice and the Olive Crown Award. She is also an Ashoka Fellow, alongside serving in different capacities with various organizations.

3. Syeda Rizwana Hasan

As the Minister of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change and the advisor to the interim government of Bangladesh, Rizwana Hasan has had an extraordinary career which has earned her recognition as Bangladesh’s environmental champion. Born in 1968 in Habiganj, modern-day Bangladesh, Rizwana graduated from the University of Dhaka, earning her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in law. Dedicated to environmental and societal justice, she rose to prominence by spearheading a legal battle against the shipbreaking industry in Bangladesh. 

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She filed a case against the import of toxin-laden ships, mostly from developed countries, destined to be broken down for parts in Bangladesh — an industry that exploits its workers through low pay and hazardous conditions and poisons the surroundings. This resulted in government regulation of the industry and marked the first time that a polluting company was fined in Bangladesh. 

Apart from the ship-breaking industry, Rizwana has continued to tackle other sectors that exploit their workers and the environment, filing lawsuits against organizations responsible for filling lakes to construct real estate, misusing polythene, cutting hills, deforestation, shrimp farming, and illegal construction. 

She joined the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA) in 1993, eventually serving as Chief Executive, leading it to win the Global 500 Roll of Honor in 2003 from the United Nations Environment Program. She has been awarded many honors and recognitions, including the Goldman Environmental Prize 2009 and the Ramon Magsaysay Award 2012.

4. Afia Salam

Image Credit: TEDx

Afia Salam is a Pakistani journalist, notable for being the country’s first female cricket journalist and an outspoken proponent of women’s rights and climate activism. She graduated with a master’s degree in Geography from the University of Karachi in 1982 and went on to have a prolific career spanning four decades of experience in print, electronic, and web journalism. She joined the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Pakistan in 2008, which impressed on her the gravity of the environmental challenges that Pakistan faced. 

She has played an instrumental role in the designation of Marine Protected Areas along Pakistan’s coasts, including Astola Island, which is now the country’s first such area. This initiative has been crucial in safeguarding marine biodiversity in a region that is vulnerable to the devastating effects of climate change. 

Beyond this, Afia’s leadership extends to her work with the Indus Earth Trust, where she serves as President of the Board. The organization focuses on ‘green construction,’ water replenishment, wastewater treatment, and sustainable energy solutions. 

She also serves as the current elected President of the Executive Committee of Baanhn Beli, an NGO dedicated to striving for a gender equitable education and women empowerment. She works to deliver water through wells, reservoirs, and dams, along with educational programmes in the destitute district of Tharparkar. Afia is also a member of the working group formed by the National Security Division and Strategic Policy Planning to draft climate change and security recommendations.

5. Fawzia Tarannum

A dedicated force in the fight for water sustainability and climate action in India, Dr. Fawzia Tarannum exemplifies the power of education and research in driving environmental activism. With over 24 years of experience, her work spans research, education, and direct community engagement. 

Having held diverse roles, including Assistant Professor at TERI School of Advanced Studies and General Manager-Sales at Cleantec Infra Private Limited, Dr. Fawzia’s experience extends across academia and industry. As the National Coordinator for Water at The Climate Reality Project, India, she has worked tirelessly to raise awareness and build solutions around India’s water challenges. 

Her efforts have reached thousands of people through delivering over 5,000 training programs on water governance, climate change, and gender equality. A Fulbright Hubert H. Humphrey Fellow, Dr. Fawzia’s global perspective on water issues has shaped her impactful work at the WforW Foundation, where she co-founded a platform for people to come together to address water concerns. 

Image Credit: TERI University

She is also the founder of her own company, Earthwise Environment and Sustainability Solutions. Honored as one of the 17 SDG Women Changemakers by Sayfty Trust and Twitter India, Dr. Fawzia’s work is a testament to the power of perseverance and passion. 

In a world often overshadowed by the grim realities of climate change, the stories of these women offer much hope. As we draw inspiration from their collective commitment that transcends borders, we must recognize that climate justice is a responsibility shared by individuals and communities alike. Many women in climate-vulnerable nations are courageously leading the way in the fight for climate justice.

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Women in Bangladesh, however, are particularly vulnerable given their lack of financial capacity to become climate resilient. This is in part due to insufficient foreign climate finance – finance drawn from international private, public and alternative sources to support climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts. Fundamental flaws within the current climate finance model systematically trap poor people, in particular women, in a cycle of debt. Bangladesh’s women contribute significantly to the country’s food security, constituting more than 70% of the country’s agriculture sector. Climate justice for Bangladesh must include empowering its women by establishing a grants-based climate finance system that is informed through a gender-equity lens.

In 2009, industrialized nations promised to collectively provide $100 billion USD annually to developing nations for climate adaptation and mitigation. This commitment has gone mainly unmet. A report by Oxfam estimates that between 2019-20, 73% of climate finance provided by rich nations was in the form of loans, with a significant amount (42%) of high-interest, non-concessional loans. Consequently, rural Bangladeshi families spend more than $2 billion USD every year on climate adaptation. With COP 28 commencing this week in the United Arab Emirates, rich nations must prioritize the urgent provision of gender-equitable climate finance to developing nations bearing the brunt of the climate crisis, in particular Bangladesh, to avert serious implications of loss and damage.

Bangladesh’s Women Fighting Climate Change

Climate adaptation is costly. Despite Bangladesh’s minimal carbon emissions, her people are forced to take out loans to cope with an ecological crisis they did not cause. Given the severe consequences of the changing climate, Bangladeshi farmers are looking for alternatives to continue earning livelihoods. This even includes farming saline-tolerant shrimp instead of traditional rice and vegetable varieties. However, converting rice paddies or other crop fields to aquaculture is expensive and complicated, especially for women, given their limited financial capacity. 

Despite these challenges, Bangladeshi women are fighting back with resilience. Shefali Begum, a resourceful Bangladeshi woman from Sundarbans in the southwest of Bangladesh, devised a creative technique to deal with excessive moisture and soil salinity in her area region. Her method involved setting up cement rings in areas with high moisture levels which were then filled with salt-free soil enriched with organic waste. This technique helped regulate water levels, preventing the crops from drying up or becoming excessively inundated. 

Many Bangladeshi women have contributed to the revival of an age-old traditional cultivation method known as Baira, which involves the creation of floating vegetable gardens made of buoyant hyacinth, paddy stalks, and other weeds. They use these materials to construct rafts or organic beds, beating them into shape and forming floating gardens. These gardens are then placed in flooded parts of the villages, taking advantage of the rising water levels. 

Colonial Legacy & Dismantling of the Waqf System

The irony lies in the historical colonial exploitation of the Indian subcontinent, including today’s Bangladesh, where Britain plundered almost $45 trillion between 1765 and 1938. This history of colonial resource depletion is further exacerbated today through a brutal system of climate finance comprised primarily of high-interest, non-concessional loans. The result is a perpetual cycle of gendered economic inequity amongst climate-vulnerable Bangladeshi women who spend double their average incomes compared to men to protect themselves from global warming.

The harmful legacy of colonialism has also unravelled on another front. Before the colonization of the Indian subcontinent, the Islamic system of Waqf served as a critical instrument of poverty alleviation in Bangladesh—whereby property was donated in perpetuity for charitable objectives and community interests such as agriculture, education, and healthcare. Waqf not only contributed towards human welfare but also preserved nature while doing so, given its core principles of sustainable development, green economy, and green finance. 

With the arrival of British colonial rule in the mid-18th century, controlling land and property became a central concern for colonial authorities, resulting in a series of changes that led to the dismantling of the Waqf system that thrived before colonization. This colonial injustice adversely impacts climate-vulnerable Bangladeshi women and families who would have previously benefitted from the Waqf system; instead, today, they have to rely on high-interest loans to protect themselves from climate change.

The Urgent Need for Gender-Informed Climate Finance

Another aggravating aspect of the current system of climate finance is its lack of gender-informed objectives required to ensure gender equity and women-empowerment for just and inclusive climate action. In some cases, climate finance harms communities instead of benefitting them by increasing their debt burdens, tragically leading to incidents of suicide of indebted beneficiaries.

To fulfill the urgent need for just climate action, a paradigm shift is necessary for climate finance. Communities and people are being forced into debt to recover from a climate crisis they did not start. Industrialized countries must adopt a fairer approach to climate finance: reparations-based, comprising grants and gender-equal. Additionally, climate finance for Bangladesh must propel gender equity and women’s empowerment as its core objective; expanding Bangladeshi women’s access to equitable financial resources will increase agricultural production and food security in their communities and advance their urgently needed contributions toward climate resilience.

The post How Gender-Responsive Climate Finance Empowers Bangladesh’s Women appeared first on Muslim Climate Watch.

Read More: How Gender-Responsive Climate Finance Empowers Bangladesh’s Women

Ranked among the 10 countries most vulnerable to climate change, despite emitting only about 0.5% of global emissions, Bangladesh has suffered losses worth $3.72 billion and witnessed 185 extreme weather events due to climate change between 2000 to 2019. According to the World Bank, average tropical cyclones cost the country $1 billion (USD) annually.

High Rates of Disaster Displacement 

One estimate shows that by 2050, one in every seven people in Bangladesh will be displaced by climate change. Additionally, Bangladesh may lose approximately 11% of its land due to sea-level rise by 2050 and in turn risk displacement of up to 18 million people. This is already evident through the recent displacement of over 7.1 million people in 2021 due to climate disasters. 

Given these threats, some experts have warned the largest mass migration in human history has already started in Bangladesh due to the worsening impacts of climate change, with a risk of displacing up to 50 million people by 2100 due to sea-level rise.

Bangladesh’s Ingenious Early Warning System

Despite being a victim of climate injustice, Bangladesh is fighting back with resilience instead of fixating on doom and gloom. The country has taken several steps to instill high levels of climate awareness in its people, making the country’s social capital its biggest asset in fighting back, including an organized human chain of communication to relay threats of flooding whereby frontline community members periodically monitor the rise in water level across the country and report back to the country’s flood monitoring center. This system has saved thousands of lives in the events of flooding.

References

• The Climate Reality Project. (2021). How the climate crisis is impacting Bangladesh. Article.
• The World Bank. (2022). Urgent Climate Action Crucial for Bangladesh to Sustain Strong Growth. Article.
• The World Bank. (2021). Climate Change Knowledge Portal, Bangladesh. Webpage.
• GermanWatch. (2021). Global Climate Risk Index 2021. Report.
• Anadolu Agency. (2022). Climate change displaced millions of Bangladeshis in 2022: WHO. Article.
• NPR. (2023). Facing floods: What the world can learn from Bangladesh’s climate solutions. Articles.

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