All too often, gender-responsive policy is considered separately from budgeting, and from decision making about climate change. By bringing together gender equity and budgeting policies in the context of addressing climate change, there is the opportunity to address the adverse impacts of climate change on women and gender-diverse people worldwide, and to enhance the efforts to develop more impactful climate change strategies.
Gender-responsive budgeting (GRB) is “a strategy that promotes the goal of gender equity by allocating specific budgets for gender mainstreaming.” A concept first introduced at the Nairobi World Conference on Women in 1985, “gender mainstreaming” translates into an approach to policy making across portfolios (e.g., transportation, housing, climate change, etc.) that takes into account the interests and concerns of women, men, girls, and boys. In turn, GRB can be applied to the analysis of any policy-related portfolio, including climate change.
Most explorations of GRB focus on women and men, girls, and boys, rather than on gender diversity. As reported by the Native Women’s Association of Canada’s (NWAC) Toolkit – Impact of Climate Change on Indigenous Women, Girls, Two-Spirit, Transgender and Gender-Diverse People, climate change “will negatively impact those who are already vulnerable due to inadequate access to housing, health care, food, and water among other factors,” namely, women, girls, Two-Spirit and gender-diverse People. The NWAC toolkit highlights how funding resources are crucial to facilitating environmental protection and to enabling gender-diverse members of Indigenous communities to contribute their knowledge and expertise to address climate change.
Conventionally, GRB calls for adjusting budget policies – according to revenues, expenditures, budget allocations and adjustments – to benefit all women, men, girls, and boys, and to eliminate discrimination. There are four steps to applying GRB to climate action; however, these steps can also be applied to the analysis of existing policies:
- Identify the problem using key indicators, developed through research, and analyse the problem in relation to gender impacts.
- When developing different strategies or programs (i.e., climate actions), consider how they are gender-responsive. What actions are necessary to benefit the breadth of gender-diverse people?
- When allocating the budget and reallocating funds necessary to implement programming, ensure that the budget is adequate to support gender equity.
- Engage in cyclical monitoring, checking whether expenditures are made as planned and if reallocations are needed. How have activities been executed, targets reached, and services delivered from the standpoint of the recipient(s)?
Over 100 countries have implemented GRB, and Bangladesh, Mexico, and Indonesia have implemented gender-responsive climate budgeting practices. Touted as a step toward accountability and transparency in decision making and women’s rights, GRB for climate action is also considered “an opportunity for effective collaboration between social and environmental sectors, and more effective budgeting to deliver on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).”
Gender-responsive policy must encompass intersectionality, gender diversity, link to budgeting processes, and be developed in the context of climate change to unite efforts in promoting social change and strategies for environmental protection.
By Leela Viswanathan
(Image Credit: Annie Spratt, Unsplash)
The post Promoting Gender-Responsive Budgeting for Climate Action and Social Change appeared first on Indigenous Climate Hub.
Promoting Gender-Responsive Budgeting for Climate Action and Social Change
The United Nations may have accepted that overshooting 1.5C of warming – at least temporarily – is inevitable – but God’s representative on Earth didn’t get the memo.
The new pope, Leo XIV, sent a video message to cardinals from the Global South gathered at the Amazonian Museum in Belém last night, saying “there is still time to keep the rise in global temperature below 1.5°C” although, he warned, “the window is closing.”
“As stewards of God’s creation, we are called to act swiftly, with faith and prophecy, to protect the gift he entrusted to us,” he said, reading from a sheet of paper in front of a portrait of the Vatican.
And he defended the 10-year-old Paris Agreement, saying it has ”driven real progress and remains our strongest tool for protecting people and the planet.” “It is not the Agreement that is failing – we are failing in our response,” he said In particular, the American Pope pointed to“the political will of some.”
“We walk alongside scientists, leaders and pastors of every nation and creed. We are guardians of creation, not rivals for its spoils. Let us send a clear global signal together: nations standing in unwavering solidarity behind the Paris Agreement and behind climate cooperation,” he emphasised.
UN climate chief Simon Stiell welcomed the message, adding that the Pope’s words “challenge us to keep choosing hope and action, honouring our shared humanity and standing with communities all around the world already crying out in floods, droughts, storms and relentless heat”.
The post COP Bulletin Day 8: Pope keeps faith in 1.5C appeared first on Climate Home News.
I pause to write this letter in the middle of week one of the 30th UNFCCC Conference of the Parties — the big international climate conference, the space for multilateral decision making to save ourselves from ourselves and rein in the climate crisis. Day two photos showed that a torrential downpour left the blue zone entrance flooded. Mother Nature is present and making her anger known.
This morning I also saw the announcement of Time Magazine’s 100 Climate leaders for 2025. At the top of the list I found the Global Head of Climate Advisory for JP Morgan Chase, Sarah Kapnick. I shook my head, thinking perhaps I was still asleep, and refocused. There it was indeed.
JPMorgan Chase is the world’s largest financier of fossil fuels, having provided over $382 billion since the Paris Agreement, with $53.5 billion in 2024 alone. The bank faces criticism from scientists and activists for its continued large-scale investments, particularly in fossil fuel expansion. How does a person who works for such an institution end up being lauded as a hero working to resolve the climate crisis?
Last week the Guardian released a report from Kick Big Polluters Out showing that over the past four years fossil fuel lobbyists have gained access to negotiation spaces at COP. The roughly 5,350 lobbyists mingling with world leaders and climate negotiators in recent years worked for at least 859 fossil fuel organizations including trade groups, foundations and 180 oil, gas and coal companies involved in every part of the supply chain from exploration and production to distribution and equipment. There are more fossil fuel lobbyists and executives in negotiations than delegates representing the most climate vulnerable countries on the planet.
We’ve known since the late 1800s that greenhouse gas emissions warm the planet. In 1902 a Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius calculated that burning fossil fuels will, over time, lead to a hotter Earth. But the fossil fuel industry followed Big Tobacco’s playbook and despite knowing the truth, waged a multi-decade, multibillion dollar disinformation, propaganda and lobbying campaign to delay climate action by confusing the public and policymakers about the climate crisis and its solutions. See this report from Climate Action Against Disinformation and the Exxon funded think tanks to spread climate change denial in Latin America.
They’ve infiltrated our K-12 classrooms. The Oklahoma Energy Resources Board, a state agency funded by oil and gas producers, has spent upwards of $40m over the past two decades on providing education with a pro-industry bent, including hundreds of pages of curriculums, a speaker series and an after-school program — all at no cost to educators of children from kindergarten to high school. In Ohio students learn about the beauty of fracking. Even Scholastic, a brand trusted by parents and educators, has attached its seal of approval to pro fossil fuel materials. Discovery Education has also embedded pro oil propaganda into its science and stem free resources.
There is no just transition, no possible way to keep our global temperatures to the limit agreed to in Paris ten years ago without a fast and fair phase out of fossil fuels. We know this is possible, during the first half of 2025, renewables generated more electricity than coal. As UN General Secretary António Guterres said in his opening remarks in Belem, “We’ve never been better equipped to fight back… we just lack political courage.”
Next year, I hope that TIME’s Climate 100 is a list of indigenous climate activists from around the world, whose leadership has led us to find the political courage Guterres spoke of, the courage to do the right thing and phase out fossil fuels forever.
Susan Phillips
Executive Director
Photo by Andrea DiCenzo
The post A fast, fair, full, and funded fossil fuel phaseout appeared first on Climate Generation.
As COP30 reaches its midway point in the Brazilian city of Belém, Carbon Brief has hosted its second “ask us anything” webinar to exclusively answer questions submitted by holders of the Insider Pass.
The webinar kicked off with an overview of where the negotiations are on Day 8, plus what it was like to be among the 70,000-strong “people’s march” on Saturday.
At present, there are 44 agreed texts at COP30, with many negotiating streams remaining highly contested, as shown by Carbon Brief’s live text tracker.
Topics discussed during the webinar included the potential of a “cover text” at COP30, plus updates on negotiations such as the global goal on adaptation and the just-transition work programme.
Journalists also answered questions on the potential for a “fossil-fuel phaseout roadmap”, the impact of finance – including the Baku to Belém roadmap, which was released the week before COP30 – and Article 6.
The webinar was moderated by Carbon Brief’s director and editor, Leo Hickman, and featured six of our journalists – half of them on the ground in Belém – covering all elements of the summit:
- Dr Simon Evans – deputy editor and senior policy editor
- Daisy Dunne – associate editor
- Josh Gabbatiss – policy correspondent
- Orla Dwyer – food, land and nature reporter
- Aruna Chandrasekhar – land, food systems and nature journalist
- Molly Lempriere – policy section editor
A recording of the webinar (below) is now available to watch on YouTube.
Watch Carbon Brief’s first COP30 “ask us anything” webinar here.
The post COP30: Carbon Brief’s second ‘ask us anything’ webinar appeared first on Carbon Brief.
COP Bulletin Day 8: Pope keeps faith in 1.5C
A fast, fair, full, and funded fossil fuel phaseout
How the VEU Program Works: Step by Step for Homeowners
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
Spanish-language misinformation on renewable energy spreads online, report shows
-
Climate Change3 months ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Greenhouse Gases3 months ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Climate Change2 years ago
Spanish-language misinformation on renewable energy spreads online, report shows
-
Greenhouse Gases1 year ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Climate Change Videos2 years ago
The toxic gas flares fuelling Nigeria’s climate change – BBC News
-
Climate Change1 year ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Carbon Footprint2 years agoUS SEC’s Climate Disclosure Rules Spur Renewed Interest in Carbon Credits
-
Renewable Energy4 months ago
US Grid Strain, Possible Allete Sale