Gender Responsiveness

In the context of climate change, gender responsiveness refers to an approach to climate policy, mitigation and adaptation strategies and programs that takes into account the differential impacts of climate change across gender identities. Women and girls comprise the majority of the world’s poor who are dependent on natural resources made vulnerable by the impacts of the changing climate and biodiversity loss. The higher risks and burdens that women and girls face in relation to climate change are also due to a range of sociocultural factors; the care-giving responsibilities that traditionally fall to women such as child-rearing and water collecting will become more labor-intensive and riskier as resources become scarcer on a warming planet. Climate-related disasters also exacerbate gender health disparities. Extreme weather has been found to have an adverse effect on the bodies of people who can get pregnant and menstruate and gender diverse people. A gender responsive approach to climate change addresses these disparities. This could look like everything from ensuring women are represented in climate negotiation and policy-making spaces, to funding girl’s education. The UNFCCC has established an agenda to address gender and climate change and the Paris Agreement references gender-responsive adaptation action and capacity-building.

Key Terms:

• Gender diverse people
  People whose gender identity does not conform to the gender norms of the society in which they live. This includes a wide range of identities, including, but not limited to, transgender, non-binary and genderqueer.

• Women in their diversity
  All women who identify as a woman.

• Care work
  The emotional, physical and psychological labor of looking after other people, which could include cleaning, cooking, child-rearing and caring for the elderly. In patriarchal societies this work traditionally falls to women and girls.

• Capitalism
  

  An economic system underpinned by private ownership, market competition and the accumulation of capital. Since the end of the feudal era, capitalism has been the main economic system operating in the Western world. Under capitalism, labor that is not built on a profit motive, for example care work, is devalued and either not remunerated or paid poorly.

Resources for Further Learning:

•  UNEP. "UNEP and nature-based solutions" United Nations Environment Programme, 2024
  

• TEEB. "making nature’s values visible" The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, 2024.

• FAO. "Climate-Smart Agriculture" Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2024.

• Global Petlands Initiative. "Global Peatlands Assessment: The State of the World’s Peatlands" Global Peatlands Initiative, 2024.

• World Bank Group. “What You Need to Know About Nature-Based Solutions to Climate Change” World Bank Group, 2024.