Posted 04/03/2022 by Dr Rebecca Bathgate
On Tuesday 8 March 2022 we celebrate International Women’s Day (IWD) with its United Nations (UN) theme of ‘Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow’. It recognises the global contribution of women to the climate change response. Five years ago, the UN theme embodied a similar call for gender equality (‘Women in the Changing World of Work: Planet 50-50 by 2030’). That theme highlighted disparities in the division of household labour as a barrier to personal economic advancement for women. Today, the messaging has a more inclusive emphasis: that gender equality can lead to an improved, more sustainable future for everyone.
Gradual UN recognition of climate change as a gendered issue
This sustainable future is being partly delivered under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Established in 1992, this is the framework under which countries take steps to address climate change. At COP7 in 2001 (an annual Conference of Parties), the first standalone decisions were adopted on integrating gender equality into National Adaptation Programmes of Action and improving the participation of women in bodies established under the climate framework.
Following this, COP20 in 2014 established the Lima Work Programme on Gender to:
advance gender balance and integrate gender consideration into the work of Parties and the secretariat in implementing the Convention and the Paris Agreement so as to achieve gender-responsive climate policy and action.
The Lima Programme was extended at COP22, and COP23 saw the establishment of the first Gender Action Plan. At COP25, Parties agreed to an enhanced Lima Programme and associated enhanced Gender Action Plan.
Why climate change is considered a gendered issue
The nexus between gender and climate change is a complex one as the impacts of climate change intersect with inequality along multiple lines including gender, age and indigeneity. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 5th Assessment Report on climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability noted that multiple lines of evidence now point to climate change contributing to existing gender inequalities, stating:
existing gender inequality is increased or heightened as a result of weather events and climate-related disasters intertwined with socioeconomic, institutional, cultural and political drivers that perpetuate differential vulnerabilities. (p. 105)
In the developing world, the differential impacts of climate change on men and women come about through women being more reliant on natural resources for their livelihoods and their socially constructed roles. These factors mean that women tend to be more heavily impacted by climate variability, degradation of ecosystems and natural disasters (see Figure 1).
Figure 1 Gender-differentiated impacts of climate change on women
Source: World Bank, FAO, 2017, https://www.fao.org/climate-smart-agriculture-sourcebook/enabling-frameworks/module-c6-gender/chapter-c6-1/en/
Even in developed countries such as Australia, the IPCC 5th Assessment Report notes:
Men and women are differentially affected by climate variability and change. The 10-year drought in Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin differentially affected men and women, owing to their distinct roles within agriculture. (p. 808)
The IPCC’s latest 6th Assessment Report has also increased focus on these differential vulnerabilities. Summarising its assessment of the limits to climate adaptation, the report notes that:
the intersection of inequality and poverty presents significant adaptation limits, resulting in residual impacts for vulnerable groups, including women, youth, elderly, ethnic and religious minorities, Indigenous People and refugees. [emphasis added] (p. 1_63)
Current levels of representation and facilitating increased agency
Compounding these different impacts is the fact that women tend to be under-represented in climate-related planning and policymaking.
- Globally, the percentage of women in national parliaments is 25.8% (October 2021). The percentage of women government ministers is 21%, with 14 countries globally having achieved 50% or more women in cabinets (January 2020).
- The IUCN Environment and Gender Information (EGI) data for 2020 shows that women held 15% of the 712 environmental sector minister positions, up from 12% in 2015.
- In 2021, female government delegates occupied 33% of positions on constituted bodies of the UN’s climate framework (no increase from 2019). A total of three bodies had gender balance in 2021.
- Analysis from Carbon Brief shows the average gender balance of named party (nation state) delegations registered for COP26 (2021) was 65% male: 35% female. Eight delegations had a 50:50 gender balance and 27 parties had more female delegates than male.
- The IPCC’s sixth assessment cycle has 32% female scientific authors.
Efforts are ongoing to give women greater agency over climate change policies and policymaking. These initiatives recognise that women are highly effective in leading and engaging with sustainability initiatives at the community or national level and can play key leadership roles in devising and delivering sustainable resource management policies.
- The Global Gender and Climate Alliance was created in 2007 in response to calls from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and Women's Environment and Development Organization for a coordinated global strategy on the issue of gender and climate change. Its 2016 report, ‘Gender and Climate Change: a closer look at existing evidence’ comprehensively covers existing scientific literature on how gender intersects with climate change.
- The Women and Gender Constituency, as an official stakeholder group of the UNFCCC, brings together accredited women’s and environmental civil society organisations. It facilitates their involvement in UNFCCC processes and ensures that gender equality is integrated into climate actions under this framework.
- The Commission on the Status of Women is the ‘principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women’. It will hold its 66th Session from 14–25 March 2022 with the priority theme ‘Achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls in the context of climate change, environmental and disaster risk reduction policies and programmes’.
- The Gender Climate Tracker evaluates the extent to which countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions address women’s rights as beneficiaries of policies, as agents of change, or as stakeholders in decision-making.
There is some evidence that efforts to increase agency are having effect. At COP26 in Glasgow last year, 12 of the bodies constituted under the climate framework reported progress on integrating a gender perspective into their processes—up from six in 2017. The UN theme for IWD 2022, ‘Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow’, is therefore a reminder of the changes that are happening, and an acknowledgement of the critical role women will play in everyone’s future.
Further information
In 2022, UN Women Australia held a virtual IWD Event on 4 March (with speaker content available to view until 13 March 2022).