A UNIVERSITY of Bradford professor has been awarded over £1 million for a project which examines how climate change impacts women.

Dr Pedi Obani from the University of Bradford has been awarded £1.28 million to conduct research that will help women around the world who are adversely affected by climate change.

She is one of just 68 academics to be awarded prestigious Future Leaders Fellowship status by the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) funding body.

Dr Obani, an associate professor in the School of Law, was awarded the grant for a four-year project that will examine ways in which climate change adversely impacts women and will create a framework for addressing these problems.

Dr Obani said: “I am delighted and honoured to be awarded a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship. This prestigious award affords me the funding, flexibility, and support to conduct world-class research and pivot into being a global leading expert in gender inclusive climate change governance over the next four years.

“In addition to the invaluable opportunity to build my capacity and competence in interdisciplinary and multi-country research, the award also means that I can focus on co-creating knowledge that addresses the critical and under-researched question of how to redesign legal and political institutions to advance climate justice for women.

"I also look forward to influencing policy decisions to amplify women’s agency in climate change governance.”

Dr Obani said her research would ultimately attempt to provide solutions to social and cultural gender inequalities that may be exacerbated by climate change.

She added that the findings, which will be presented to governments in Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya, could have wider implications, for example in Europe.

Earlier this year, a group of Swiss women lodged a case against their own government with the European Court of Human Rights, arguing the Swiss government’s inadequate response to climate change - and in particular extreme heat events linked to global warming - was damaging their right to health and life.

They won their case. However, the Swiss parliament subsequently voted to reject the court’s ruling, putting the issue of ‘climate justice’ centre stage.

Dr Obani added: “There is also a wider point to be made in that not only are some groups of people, such as women, affected to a greater extent by adverse climate change impacts such as heatwaves – when, for example, it causes health problems or it means that women can no longer take part in recreation or education because they are spending more time on other tasks that are affected by climate change, such as collecting water or caring for relatives - they are also mainly excluded from the decision-making process.

"What we hope to do is to create a framework that enables laws and decision-making processes regarding climate change to be more gender inclusive.”