What is gender-responsive climate action?

UN Women and our partners are demanding that gender equality isn’t just an afterthought of climate solutions, but built in.

Gender-responsive climate action is designed to recognize the unique risks women and girls face, and to protect and promote their rights. These considerations make climate solutions more effective. For example, women and girls, who make up more than half of the world’s poor, tend to be impacted worst when natural resources like water are stressed. Gender-responsive climate action names and addresses these disproportionate effects.Gender mainstreaming is about normalizing the connections between gender equality and climate policies. It ensures women and men equally benefit from climate solutions – and prevents existing gender inequalities from being carried over into the design of new policies. For instance: purposefully investing in women’s access to green jobs, as much as men’s.Feminist climate justice brings a gender lens to the fight against climate change and pollution, acknowledging how the drivers of environmental harms are also the drivers of gender inequalities, such as the lack of economic opportunities.

In addition to the new GAP, there are many outcomes under negotiation at COP30. UN Women is advocating for every facet to take gender into account. This includes initiatives relating to:

climate financing: the funding of climate mitigation, adaptation and sustainable developmentthe just transition: the necessary move away from high-polluting economies and towards thriving economies that are circular, safer, and better for everyone

The Gender Equality and Climate Policy Scorecard

UN Women’s new monitoring tool assesses how effectively national climate policies address gender inequalities. Visit the dashboard to see how countries’ are stepping up on issues like unpaid care work, health and gender-based violence.

Defining a strong Gender Action Plan

Women and girls all around the world are not only experiencing the impacts of rising global temperatures but also growing backlash against their longstanding, internationally agreed rights and empowerment. UN Women calls on the Parties at COP30 to meet the moment with a Gender Action Plan that is:

Transformative: tackles the root causes of gender inequality and climate vulnerability through mitigation, adaptation, and resilience effortsInclusive: actively engages governments, civil society, Indigenous peoples, Afro-descendants, youth, the private sector and academiaAdequately resourced: includes financial, human and technical resources to support implementation – particularly for grassroots women’s organizationsAdaptable: applicable at national and local levels, supporting gender-responsive Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and Long-term, Low-Emission Development Strategies (LT-LEDS)Measurable and accountable: includes gender-specific indicators and mechanisms for monitoring and reporting, on top of voluntary commitmentsData-centric: invests in disaggregated data (including by gender, sex and age) to inform decision-making and track progress with real evidenceStrengthens previous efforts: builds on the five priorities established by the current GAP: capacity-building, gender balance and leadership, coherence, gender-responsive implementation, and monitoring and reportingAligned: harmonizes with gender action plans of other Rio Conventions and multilateral processes, including the UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity, Convention to Combat Desertification and Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction

What’s at stake for women and girls?

Climate action and gender equality cannot wait. That is why UN Women is actively working with our partners to ensure the new Gender Action Plan will deliver concrete results.

The approval of a new Gender Action Plan cannot be treated as a check-the-box exercise, with vague rhetoric and empty promises. To be clear, Parties must avoid submitting a GAP that:

Fails to centre the voices and leadership of women and girls in all their diversity, particularly those from Indigenous communities, gender-diverse groups, grassroots movements, and other groups on the frontlines of the climate crisisLacks clarity, accountability, and financial supportLacks specific mechanisms for implementation, monitoring, or enforcementFails to include binding obligations, timelines, or indicatorsSidelines gender considerations to the margins of climate governance, treating them as optional or secondary rather than integralRelies too heavily on voluntary efforts by PartiesOverlooks the differentiated, intersectional impacts of climate change on women and marginalized groupsDoes not include explicit provisions for human rights, social protection and environmental justice – potentially reinforcing existing power imbalances rather than dismantling them

The adoption of an ambitious Gender Action Plan is a matter of climate justice. A weak or absent GAP is not a neutral outcome. In fact, it risks undermining the effectiveness of the climate solutions and deepening the inequalities faced by those most impacted by the climate crisis, including Indigenous and rural women and youth.

UN Women’s call to action at COP30

Enough promises. More action. Women and girls everywhere are demanding a sustainable future – and their rightful place in it.

UN Women calls on global leaders to seize this moment to deliver a Gender Action Plan that is bold, inclusive and transformative. The climate crisis is not gender neutral. The solutions cannot be, either.

Gender-responsive climate action

UN Women is present at COP30 in Brazil with a message: Gender equality must be front and centre across all climate solutions.

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