Women and girls are disproportionately affected by natural disasters worldwide. Yet, they also play a crucial role in disaster response, community resilience, and climate solutions. Women and girls are true agents of change for climate policy and climate action in their communities.
To promote gender-responsive climate action, we must ensure that women in all their diversity are equitably represented in climate negotiations and policy-making spaces.
Despite their significant contributions at every level of climate action, women remain under-represented in decision-making spaces, which limits the inclusion of diverse perspectives, expertise, and leadership in developing climate solutions. This underrepresentation is particularly acute for women environmental rights defenders, indigenous women, and rural women, who possess unique knowledge and maintain particularly deep connections to their environment and communities. Their lived experiences and expertise make them key agents of change in climate action. They must be integrated as equal stakeholders in all aspects of negotiations, policy-making and programme implementation.
This video features two of the Co-Chairs of our IGC Climate-Gender Impact Group: Elise Buckle, CEO of Climate and Sustainability and Co-Founder of SHE Changes Climate, and Ambassador Christian Guillermet Fernández, Permanent Representative of Costa Rica to the United Nations and other International Organisations in Geneva. They call on all stakeholders involved in climate action - including UN agencies, governments, the private sector, and civil society leaders- to play an active role in promoting diversity and inclusion in climate action. This includes advocating for gender balance in climate negotiations, championing shared leadership in climate conferences, ensuring gender mainstreaming in climate finance, and making room for new voices, including youth and indigenous women, at the table.
This video is part of the International Gender Champions video series: Championing gender equality in climate action, made possible through the support of the United States Permanent Mission to the United Nations and other International Organizations in Geneva.
To learn more about the women’s equitable representation in climate negotiations, please watch this video.