UN Women pushes strong gender plan at COP30

As world leaders convene in Belém, Brazil, for the thirtieth United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30), UN Women has called for the adoption of a robust and well-funded Gender Action Plan (GAP) to ensure gender equality remains a central pillar of global climate policy and action.

The agency warns that failure to strengthen the Gender Action Plan at COP30 would undermine years of progress in advancing women’s rights and climate justice.

“Failure to adopt a robust GAP would set back gender equality and human rights, undermining hard-won progress and signaling that women’s leadership and experience are expendable in the climate fight,” said Sarah Hendriks, Director of Policy, Programme and Intergovernmental Division at UN Women.

Climate change, according to UN Women, is not gender neutral. Its far-reaching impacts from food insecurity and displacement to loss of livelihoods disproportionately affect women and marginalized communities.

Women, especially those in rural and indigenous settings, are often on the frontlines of climate crises but remain underrepresented in decision-making spaces where solutions are designed.

The first Gender Action Plan, adopted in 2017, was instrumental in integrating gender perspectives into the UNFCCC process. It ensured that gender considerations were included across key climate areas such as mitigation, adaptation, finance, and capacity-building.

The plan provided countries, institutions, and civil society organisations with a framework to make gender equality a tangible component of climate decision-making.

At COP30, UN Women is calling on all Parties to adopt a transformative and inclusive Gender Action Plan that tackles the root causes of gender inequality and climate vulnerability, while being grounded in accountability and practical implementation.

The agency emphasizes the need for adequate financing to sustain gender-responsive actions, the protection of the rights of women and girls in all their diversity, and the recognition of women environmental human rights defenders as essential actors in the fight for climate justice.

“The adoption of a strong GAP at COP30 will be a defining moment of global commitment to gender equality and the integrity of the UNFCCC as a platform for inclusive and rights-based multilateral climate governance,” Hendriks emphasized.

As COP30 opened on November 10, UN Women and the Kaschak Institute for Social Justice for Women and Girls launched the Gender Equality and Climate Policy Scorecard, a pioneering tool designed to measure how governments are addressing gender inequalities through their national climate policies.

The Scorecard analyzed 32 Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) the climate action plans submitted under the Paris Agreement across six key dimensions: economic security, unpaid care work, health, gender-based violence, participation and leadership, and gender mainstreaming.

Initial findings show that while most countries recognise women’s disproportionate vulnerability to climate change, far fewer acknowledge their critical role as solution providers.

Ten countries demonstrated comprehensive gender-responsive commitments, sixteen took moderate steps, and six failed to include any gender-focused actions at all.

Most commitments centered on improving women’s economic security, while areas such as health, unpaid care work, and gender-based violence were largely overlooked.

The Scorecard findings will be presented at the UN Women’s side event during COP30, titled “Gender-Responsive Climate Action: Unleashing and Accelerating Implementation of the Paris Agreement.”

The event, organized in partnership with the Government of Liberia and the Kaschak Institute, will take place on Thursday, November 20, from 2:00–3:30 p.m. at the Government of Liberia’s pavilion.

The session will highlight the urgent need to integrate gender equality into national and international climate frameworks and showcase innovative approaches for inclusive climate governance.

UN Women insists that achieving gender equality and climate justice requires women’s full, equal, and meaningful participation in all levels of climate decision-making.

The organization stresses that women from communities most affected by climate change, particularly indigenous and rural women, must be involved in designing and implementing sustainable solutions that benefit society as a whole.

As negotiations continue in Belém, UN Women’s message to global leaders is firm: gender equality is not a peripheral concern but a core pillar of effective, inclusive, and just climate action.