Georgia: Climate change and gender

While the negative impacts of climate change affect all of us, women, children and older people are more seriously affected as members of higher risk groups. This is particularly true of those living underneath the poverty threshold.

To meet these challenges, the Georgian Ministry of the Environment and Agriculture partnered with the IKI project ‘Capacity Development for Climate Policy in Southeastern and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia’ and the Regional Environmental Centre (REC) Caucasus to host the ‘Tbilisi Climate Change and Gender Conference: addressing gender gaps in climate change in Georgia’ in December 2023. The German embassy in Georgia also participated in this event.

Conference delegates discussed how all members of society, and marginalised groups in particular, could be addressed and accounted for equally in the development and implementation of national climate policy, and how climate action processes could be designed to be more gender-sensitive.

The aim of the conference was to promote awareness for gender-specific aspects of climate change, and to stimulate dialogue between interest groups concerning the involvement of gender-specific aspects as part of national climate action policy. In addition, the conference aimed to bring together relevant groups and institutions, and therefore contribute to the initiation of gender-related research and measures within the field of climate change in Georgia.

In this, the conference appeared to be a complete success: representatives of government institutions, non-governmental organisations, international organisations, civil society, higher education institutions as well as other experts all agreed that gender aspects must be integrated as part of measures aimed at taking action on climate.

Exhibition of works from students attending the State Art Academy

The conference was supplemented by an exhibition of art works that had been created by students attending the Tbilisi State Art Academy on the topic of climate change and gender, as part of a workshop on climate change and art. The works had been created in October 2022 during a workshop run by the Tbilisi State Art Academy. During the workshop, the students received a compact introduction to the interrelationships between gender and climate change, which covered both scientific and political aspects.

Working from this basis, the students expressed their insights into climate change and its consequences for different gender groups in the form of digital artworks. The group itself consisted of artists with very different backgrounds.

The artworks comprised a broad palette of colours and styles, and expressed a diverse range of thoughts, ideas and interpretations from the students in relation to the challenges of climate change.
In particular, this artistic approach clearly visualised the desire of the younger generation to take urgent action, since their own future depends on the measures adopted today.

The winner is…

Conference participants were invited to pick their favourite artwork, which was then awarded a prize at the end of the event. The first prize went to Luka Ishkhneli for his climate change artwork depicting the last ice cube on Earth as a museum exhibit.