Gender-responsive climate and environmental action
Towards greater gender equality and a safer, healthier planet for all.
The triple planetary crisis – climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution – has very real and very unequal impacts on women and girls.
This November, as Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and other stakeholders gather in Belém, Brazil for COP30 – the global conference to advance climate change mitigation and adaptation – UN Women stands firm: Gender equality must be at the heart of climate action.
How gender inequality and climate change are interconnected
The climate crisis is one of the most pressing issues of our times. It threatens to reverse progress on human rights and sustainable development, and worsens gender inequality – posing specific risks to livelihoods, health, safety and security of women and girls.
Amid growing backlash against gender equality and women’s rights, global leaders must maintain the gains made since the Paris Agreement – and accelerate gender-responsive climate commitments and financing to ensure that women and girls benefit. While Parties at COP30 negotiate a new Gender Action Plan, UN Women will provide critical gender analysis of national climate commitments and support our partners in advocating for a GAP that is fit for purpose: ensuring climate solutions are truly gender responsive.
Achieving gender equality and climate justice requires women’s full, equal and meaningful participation in decision-making. Women in communities on the frontlines of climate change, especially Indigenous and rural women, must be at the table to define sustainable solutions – for the benefit of all of society.
As climate policies and programmes are crafted, women and girls must be front and centre in just transitions away from fossil fuels and harmful practices and towards a healthier, safer, and more equitable world.
