Addressing the gender gap in climate policies

THE Brazilian Presidency vision of this year’s Climate Change Conference (COP30) as the “implementation COP” underscored the urgency of moving commitments to concrete action.

This imperative echoes concerns of earlier milestones, from the Brundtland Commission’s “Our Common Future” (1987), which framed sustainable development as a global priority, to the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, which birthed the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (U CCC).

While Our Common Future and the U CCC shaped global climate governance, including informing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), they are deeply embedded in a paradigm that privileges technocratic and growth-oriented solutions.

These androcentric frameworks largely ignore gender and intersectional dimensions of sustainability, weakening the integration of social justice and the pursuit of sustainability.

Belem, as I experienced it, became a test of whether gender equality can become embedded in the operational core of climate governance.

The Belem GAP’s (Gender Action Plan) re-encountering of gender equality challenges revealed the continuous struggles to move beyond rhetorical inclusion. The negotiations and debates reveal deep political and philosophical anxieties around the concept of gender, particularly on how to address systematic inequalities within climate governance.

The Belem GAP outlines actions for the next nine years as a tool to support the Parties implementing their nationally determined climate action. However, the removal of foundational human rights language weakens it even though it contains safeguards for women environmental defenders.

The Brundtland Report, despite its celebrated potential, illustrated how the absence of explicit gender language strips away the power to drive equitable transitions. This is a problem within the Belem GAP that we cannot afford to ignore.

Implementing Belem GAP requires us to muster courage, embrace inclusion and be persistent in honouring the Paris commitments that “climate change is a common concern of humankind ... Parties should, when taking action to address climate change, respect, promote and consider their respective obligations on human rights ... as well as gender equality, empowerment of women and intergenerational equity.”

Belem GAP underscores the urgency of constructing an integrated framework that addresses entrenched gendered inequalities and safeguards inter- and intra-generational equity.

Achieving this requires merging ecological lens with human rights and social inclusion. For this to happen, gender equality must be non-negotiable and should be integrated into all U CCC work plans.

Belem GAP should be celebrated for re-framing justice from an intra and inter-generational lens. This vision resonates with the Brundtland Commission’s call for fairness across nations and that economic growth must respect ecological limits.

Belem GAP can potentially address these normative shortfalls and correct their historical blind spots by centring the lived realities of all genders most affected by climate change. It suggests that the architecture of climate solutions, from financing to governance mechanisms, must embed gender-responsiveness as a core principle rather than as an add-on.

Belem GAP offers that opportunity despite the dilution of its language, that in practice we can confront the power dynamics that routinely ignore lived realities at the grassroots.

To honour COP30’s legacy, the Belem GAP commitments must not be lost in translation. Activism at the Belem COP30 signalled that climate justice must stretch across gender, geography and time.

Ultimately, sustainability and climate justice is not only about policy documents but also its embodied values. Sustainability and climate justice is a shared journey, and re-encountering its commitments through a gender lens means embracing the responsibility to act inclusively today so that tomorrow remains possible for all.

SUNITHA BISAN

Kuantan