Fostering Gender Justice in Climate Action: Recommendations to Strengthen Gender in UNFCCC Decision-Making

Advocacy

Gender

The climate crisis touches everyone, but the impact of extreme weather events – from scorching heat waves and massive floods to raging forest fires – is not equal. It has a particularly severe impact on already vulnerable people, with women and girls, in all their diversity, being the most affected. In societies around the world, women and girls still do not have equal rights. As a result of this lack of rights, in addition to negative social norms, they generally have less access to education, financial services, legal support, and job markets.

This gender inequality hinders their capacity to be prepared for and respond to climate change, leaving them more vulnerable to its impacts. This is compounded by discrimination based on other, intersecting aspects of their identity. Gender inequality also worsens the climate crisis itself. In the wake of extreme weather events, women have stepped up to organise, adapt and innovate, proving that they hold the solutions to address and tackle the impact of climate change. Yet, they remain largely excluded from policy and decision-making processes and lack access to equitable finance.

For CARE, gender justice is a cornerstone of all climate action. We urge the international climate decision-making under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to go beyond just being gender sensitive by recognising gender discrimination is a global reality, or even being gender-responsive by questioning or challenging gender inequality. Instead, UNFCCC decision-making and its implementation must strive to be gender transformative and work to close gender gaps and fundamentally change gender relations and unequal power dynamics, ensuring all genders are on an equal footing.

Access and read the full position paper below: