Introduction

Climate change indicates a new type of reciprocity between the Earth and human beings. Conflating gender with women might mean that the struggles faced by men and boys in connection with a climate disaster are overlooked. A damaging event interlocks with gender specific inequalities which underpin ordinary times and might, not only fuel but even exacerbate gendered susceptibility to short-term and long-term disaster-related hazards and ramifications. A disaster unfolds societal dynamics at the structural level and a community’s relation to its environment, the capability to adapt and the extent to which local knowledge can be infused to reduce vulnerability and harm. Some places, however, are more disposed to disasters than others and some people’s lifeworlds and livelihoods are more precarious to climate hazards than others. The extent to which the Global South struggles with climate-related disasters compared to the Global North is striking. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.