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Women in developing countries will be the most vulnerable to climate change, a report from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has warned.
The agency said there was a disproportionate burden on those women and called for greater equality.
They do most of the agricultural work, and are therefore affected by weather-related natural disasters impacting on food, energy and water, it said.
Slower population growth would help cut greenhouse gas emissions, it added.
The report suggested family planning, reproductive healthcare and "gender relations" could influence how the world adapts to rising seas, worsening storms and severe droughts.
"[There] are fundamental questions about how climate change will affect women, men, boys and girls differently around the world, and indeed within nations, and how individual behaviour can undermine or contribute to the global effort to cool our warming world," UNFPA executive director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid said.
'Cycle of deprivation'
She called for any treaty that might come from the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen next month to take into account individuals' power to "reverse the warming of the Earth's atmosphere".
Temperatures are predicted to rise by 4C to 6C by 2100, with a "likely catastrophic effect" on the environment, habitats, economies and people, the report said.
Source: BBC
