Gender and climate change is one concept that highlights the importance of women in matters relating to climate change on all levels, from high-level politics to grassroots movements. In recent years, it has become a serious agenda item under climate change negotiations. The recent Conference of the Parties (COP 23) — an annual conference on matters relating to climate change — highlights the progress made in inclusivity of gender on climate change matters; particularly through the finalization of the much awaited Gender Action Plan. What measurable effects will the plan eventually translate to is an important question to consider.

The most vulnerable people suffer the most from adverse effects of climate change. These are people living in poverty, who mostly rely on natural resources for their livelihoods and have the least capacity to cope with environmental hazards, such as landslides, floods and hurricanes. Historically, women have faced a higher risk of vulnerability due to their underrepresentation in decision making processes and labor markets.

According to His Excellency Ambassador Nazhat Shameem Khan, Fiji’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva and Chief Negotiator for the country at the COP, “High levels of sexual and gender based violence, low levels of decision making, strong gendered social norms, high levels of gender discrimination and poverty all exacerbate climate change risks for women and girls of all ages, and the majority of the world’s poor are women.” Yet, women can and do play a critical role in response to climate change because of their on-the-ground local knowledge and leadership roles on the household and community levels.

The GAP has an overall goal of supporting the implementation of gender-related decisions and mandates in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change process, the UN body targeting climate change action. Understanding the importance of women’s role, UNFCCC is strongly committed to gender inclusivity in climate action. The idea was formulated in writing in 2014 at COP 20 in Lima, where all parties adopted the Lima Work Program on Gender. This is the guiding document for the UNFCCC on improving the participation of women in convention negotiations and in the representation of parties. Gender and climate change is also an agenda item that is negotiated in each successive climate change conference. The historic Paris Agreement notes that, “Parties should when taking action to address climate change, respect, promote and consider their respective obligations on human rights, the right to health, the rights of indigenous peoples, local communities, migrants, children, persons with disabilities and people in vulnerable situations and the right to development, as well as gender equality, empowerment of women and intergenerational equity."

This year, I attended COP 23 in Bonn, Germany, where I noticed visible improvements in gender inclusivity in the political processes in developed and certain developing countries. Women, for instance, formed a strong proportion of the national delegation of the UAE. Moreover, the finance negotiators for Australia, New Zealand, India, Switzerland, the European Union and the Philippines (on behalf of the G77 countries) were all women. This was also the case for many South and Central American countries.

While it was reassuring to see female negotiators as leading figures on the international stage, this did not extend to most countries in South Asia and Africa. For instance, the UNFCCC Provisional List of Participants for COP 23 shows that out of Nepal’s 26-person delegation, only one person was a woman. Ironically, it was the Minister of Environment and Climate Change herself. Sadly, while a lack of skilled female officials might have prevented the respective delegations from being more gender balanced, historical marginalization of women has undoubtedly created the former problem in the first place. Perhaps gender inclusivity in climate change as well as beyond has still has a long way to go in societies such as these developing countries, where women are often suppressed and underrepresented. Moving away from the political context to the involvement of women in grassroots work and decision making, the situation is not any better. Nonetheless, the newly finalized GAP appears as a great step forward to acknowledge the role of women in fighting the climate change challenge.

GAP recognizes that activities relating to all areas of adaptation and mitigation as well as the implementation processes in finance, technology development and transfer and capacity building should mainstream gender in order to increase effectiveness. The GAP outlines five priority areas to be critical in achieving these UNFCCC gender related mandates: capacity-building, knowledge sharing, and communication; gender balance, participation, and women’s leadership; coherence (strengthen integration of gender in the work of UN bodies and other relevant stakeholders); gender-responsive implementation and means of implementation; monitoring and reporting.

UNFCCC should be applauded for its efforts in gender and climate change. One of the key outcomes of COP 23 was the finalization of the GAP, which highlights the role of women in climate action and promotes gender equality in the process. With this powerful momentum for gender inclusivity, it seems plausible that every country will eventually take addressing gender disparity seriously and possibly extend to other sectors of society. Lastly, it seems fair to assume that gender is being given ample attention in climate change matters and that progress is being made. The adoption of the recent GAP gives room for optimism that greater gender inclusivity is possible at all levels of society in the future.