Climate change and gender: Study of adaptation expenditure in select states of india

Abstract

India is currently executing the National Action Plan on Climate Change (GoI. National Action Plan on Climate Change. Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change, New Delhi, 2008), and subsequently the states have been asked to formulate the state-specific action plans to integrate the national objectives and to implement specific climate change measures. Several questions arise on the impact of mission-mode adaptation policy interventions on enhancing the capacities of women to cope with climate vulnerabilities. Gender is acrosscutting issue, and it is well established that climate change affects women disproportionately more than men due to inequities in accessing resources and opportunities to enable them to adapt to the inevitable impacts of climate change, as well as due to the roles that they play and the responsibilities that they shoulder. Addressing gender concerns in the context of climate change requires engendering the government-led adaptation strategies, supported by requisite budgetary outlays. So far the gender budgeting framework has not looked into the aspect of climate change impacts on women. In order to fill the research gaps, the paper attempts to bring forth the analytical inter linkage between gender and climate change by analyzing critically the budgets of select states of India-Uttarakhand (UK), Uttar Pradesh (UP), Madhya Pradesh (MP), and West Bengal (WB). The paper attempts to quantify the public expenditure on adaptation to climate change for the select states and the priority accorded to addressing gender concerns in the various sectors within the overall adaptation framework.