The outcome document for this week’s Rio+20 summit is 49 pages long. Some 23,917 words.

Women were mentioned in less than 0.01 percent of the text. And only two of the 283 sections addressed women’s needs for family planning.

At first, this might not seem like a big deal. It’s easy to think of Rio as a purely environmental conference, dealing with issues related to sustainable development and a green economy. It’s easy to say that Rio is not about “women’s issues.”

Well, we have some news for you: You can’t have sustainable development without women. Despite the best efforts of women leaders in government and civil society, strong statements on access to contraception and reproductive health services are still in doubt. Of the seven priority areas of discussion at the summit, none included a focus on women’s health and empowerment.

The stakes at Rio are huge. Time is running out to develop plans for economic growth that reduce poverty without harming our environment. But there is no path to a sustainable future that doesn’t include women. Leave them out, neglect their needs, and risk failure.

Right now, more than 200 million women in developing countries want the right to plan their families, but lack contraception. Meeting their needs would not only improve their lives, but would help them respond to the effects of climate change, practice sustainability, and participate more fully in the economy and their communities.

Consequences of environmental change — floods, droughts, crop failure — affect everyone, but are especially hard on women and families. As the primary people responsible for gathering water, firewood, and other household resources, women are on the front lines of the climate crisis. When they are able plan the timing of their own childbearing, they can better adapt to the unpredictable impacts of climate change, and ensure the survival of their families.

Powering these households and ensuring access to electricity is essential. Investing in small-scale, distributed clean energy sources like solar is the fastest, cheapest, and most reliable method to provide electricity to women and families. This will create more resilient and robust rural communities while reducing the burden on families who are heavily reliant on dangerous kerosene for electricity.

Empowering women to make these critical decisions in their own lives can also contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Studies show that slowing population growth by giving women access to the contraception they already want could reduce emissions by between 8 and 15 percent [PDF] — roughly equivalent to ending all tropical deforestation.

Family planning and reproductive health are also fundamental to promoting environmental sustainability. A woman who cannot access contraception may have more children than she can afford to feed and educate. She will need more resources to take care of her growing family. In contrast, couples who can plan their own childbearing are better able to manage other aspects of their lives, including their use of natural resources. Access to family planning helps women raise healthy and stable families, which protects valuable natural resources for future generations.

As the world population grows, the demand for water, forests, and land mounts, and pressure on resources intensifies. The most resource-stressed areas typically have few resources, high population densities, and high population growth rates. Meeting the needs of a rapidly growing population not only taxes resources, but is a significant economic challenge for many of the world’s poorest countries.

Investing in women is a powerful antidote to poverty. Women who are able to delay childbearing are more likely to meet their educational goals, obtain productive employment, and increase household income. Smaller family sizes also allow more children to be educated, and promote girls’ education. In turn, educated women tend to have smaller families, and more resources to invest in their children.

Employment for women is also important to achieving full potential in the labor market, and growing a green economy. Currently, the proportion of working-age women who are employed lags behind men in all regions. Yet women are indispensable in agriculture, producing up to 80 percent of the world’s food, and their unpaid labor is estimated to contribute up to 50 percent of GDP in some countries. By preventing unintended pregnancies, family planning can enhance women’s employment opportunities, and increase their financial contribution to communities and nations.

In short, ensuring that women have access to contraception promotes sustainable economic growth. And it’s a cost-effective investment. Every dollar spent on family planning can save $2 to $6 in other development areas.

To those who say women’s issues are a distraction from the Rio+20 negotiations, we say nothing could be further from the truth. They are at the heart of this great challenge, and provide the foundation for creating a more sustainable world.

For all of Grist’s Earth Summit coverage, click here.

Photo: Green Jobs NowThanks to the folks at the Climate Desk for bringing this conversation together, and to Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus for their introduction.

So much has been written about the inability of policymakers to produce breakthroughs in Copenhagen and Congress that one might think that the only way to address climate change is to pass massively complex bills and treaties. Of course, there are many pathways to cut carbon, and clean-energy advocates in the U.S. have made real progress even as recent legislative efforts have stalled.

Knowing there won’t be a climate bill anytime soon doesn’t mean we have to start all over again. Before I address the huge global challenge that we all know we need to solve, let me pose an important human one. After reading this exchange of essays, please ask the next person you meet these questions:

• “Does anyone in your family use an asthma inhaler?”
• “Is anyone in your family having trouble finding a job?”
• “When was last time your family had a discussion about carbon sequestration or cap-and-trade?”

Within those answers is perhaps the most important key to reducing emissions: Politicians and clean-energy advocates must stop talking about policy and start showing people how clean-energy solutions that are available right now will make their lives better.

Replacing coal-fired power plants with clean energy is a good example of how attacking climate change at a local level can deliver powerful results. The Sierra Club and a diverse coalition of grassroots organizations have already prevented 139 proposed coal plants from being built. Collectively, these grassroots victories have prevented more than 500 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually.

The coalition is increasingly focused on replacing the nation’s oldest and dirtiest coal plants with clean-energy solutions. The approach uses public health laws like the Clean Air Act to force utilities to clean up coal-burning facilities. Then, at the local level, community leaders and energy advocates show how replacing coal with clean energy is actually cheaper, will stimulate job growth, and improve air and water quality.

The strong investments in energy innovation that Shellenberger and Nordhaus call for will accelerate this trend, but we’re already having an impact even without them: Utilities have identified 10,000 megawatts of dirty coal-fired power slated for closure in just the last six months alone. Earlier this week, Arizona Public Service Company announced it would close three more coal plants, adding another 560 megawatts of dirty coal energy soon to come offline.

At least one-third of existing coal plant generation could be retired and replaced with clean energy within this decade. Reaching that goal — state by state and community by community — won’t require any new legislation. But it will require popular support. The people living in those communities will rightly demand to see how rather than taking something away, we’re delivering something better: clean-energy jobs, healthier communities, energy security, safer drinking water, and cleaner air (not to mention giving ourselves a fighting chance against climate change).

Consider Delaware. A few years ago, community groups there defeated a proposal for a new coal plant and then took aim at the state’s existing fleet. As part of negotiations to phase out these plants, the company that proposed the plant, NRG Energy, agreed to provide specialized training for current employees so they could transition to work at the planned offshore wind farm or in other clean-energy jobs. This shows we can cut emissions, create jobs, and take care of workers at the same time.

The link between politics, economy, and ecology was highlighted on Nov. 2 in California with the defeat of Proposition 23, a ballot initiative bankrolled by out-of-state oil companies that would have rolled back the state’s landmark climate bill until unemployment dropped below 5.5 percent for a year. Because we could point to existing green jobs and to industries that the proposition would kill, voters overwhelmingly rejected it. And that’s in a state with the third-highest unemployment in the nation.

As we address one of the greatest challenges humanity has ever faced, it’s important to remember that fighting climate change isn’t just an obligation, it’s an opportunity. In Delaware, California, and across the country, voters and policymakers are realizing that we should invest in energy savings and clean energy not in spite of the economic downturn, but because of it.

Editor’s note: Michael Brune will be doing a live chat with Grist’s David Roberts on Nov. 23.