Dr Triggs, who will be speaking at an online International Women’s Day event run by the UNHCR this week, said the inequality of women – especially in poor countries – meant they had fewer financial resources and were usually unable to get paid work, making it hard to obtain accommodation when they were displaced. Women in countries with a large amount of climate displacement often worked in agriculture but were unable to use those skills once displaced.

Dr Triggs said improving gender equality would make communities more resilient to climate change, and that women were also often at the forefront of efforts to prevent or adapt to it.

When she was in Niger for the UN Refugee Agency, she saw a woman who was a refugee from Mali and also an engineer directing operations for women to construct bricks from cement, sand and water. These can be used to construct small rectangular houses that keep the heat out.

“We do see these really heartening situations in which refugees are helping themselves but where women are very much at the forefront of these efforts to create an environment of self-reliance where they can protect themselves and their families. We see this everywhere,” Dr Triggs said.

Kavita Naidu, an international human rights lawyer and activist from Fiji specialising in climate justice, said climate justice is a feminist issue because the impacts of climate change are not gender neutral.

Speaking at the UN Women’s International Women’s Day event last Friday, she described her work with grassroots women and girls in Asia and the Pacific who have experienced exploitation and violence and some of the worst impacts of climate change.

Loading

Ms Naidu said these same women and girls were standing up against their governments, militaries and corporations, to fight for justice and their right to a healthy environment.

“I have never met more powerful and resilient women in my life, who, despite facing these relentless atrocities, have mobilised together to fight for their equality and the right to live in a safe and healthy environment.”

Ms Naidu said she was excited by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report last week because it emphasised that social justice and equity are critical to urgent climate action.

Renowned naturalist Jane Goodall, who was interviewed by Melbourne academic and climate activist Linh Do in a prerecorded video for the UN Women event, said the media needed to show more stories of hope and highlight that scientific solutions to climate change already exist.

Dr Goodall said the outlook would be hopeless if we carry on with business as usual but that this was not inevitable – reaching people with stories that touch the heart was more effective than only appealing to reason or getting angry.

Loading

“A lot of emphasis needs to be put on the fact that we actually scientifically have so many solutions to so much of what’s going wrong,” Dr Goodall said.

“The problem here that we face is the big corporations who haven’t changed their mindset and who feel that everything must be to do with the bottom line, who act as though they believe the natural resources of the planet are infinite. They’re not, they’re finite, but the good news is the number of big corporations that are changing.”