ANALYSIS: Warming world ‘brutalises’ women as heatwaves deepen gender divide

Source: Reuters

Excerpt:

Women will bear the brunt of extreme heat as more frequent heatwaves on a warming planet pose a growing threat to their work, earnings and lives, researchers have warned.

The impacts of rising heat are disproportionately dangerous and costly to women – be it at home or on the job – according to a report titled โ€˜The Scorching Divideโ€™ by the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center (Arsht-Rock).

The U.S.-based non-profitโ€™s research, which analysed India, Nigeria and the United States, said that extreme heat could kill 204,000 women annually across the three countries in hot years.

โ€œExtreme heat is quietly but profoundly brutalising women worldwide,โ€ said Kathy Baughman McLeod, director of Arsht-Rock. Heat creates a โ€œdouble burdenโ€ for women, the report warned.

โ€œWomen are not only more susceptible to physically getting sick from heat, theyโ€™re also disproportionately expected to care for everyone else whoโ€™s sick from heat, whether thatโ€™s paid care or unpaid care,โ€ McLeod told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Heatwaves are breaking records around the world and the continued release of planet-heating emissions – largely from the use of coal, oil and gas – will push global temperatures into uncharted territory in the coming years, scientists have said.

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