When college graduate Mona Kumari came across a pamphlet circulating in her neighbourhood about a government-sponsored solar training course, she quickly signed up, hopeful of finding work easily at the many solar parks dotting her home state of Rajasthan in northwestern India.
“I had heard about the solar boom, that solar was this big industry and that there would be many opportunities. I joined the course for that reason. I wanted to financially support my family,” the 23-year-old said ahead of the COP29 UN climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan.
She lived her dream during the three-month course, which is being offered across more than 500 centres in the South Asian nation to feed an ever-growing demand for green skills.
“I loved the training. I learned how to install solar panels, where to place them – not in the shade but where the sun’s rays fall on them – how to connect the wires. I was even taken to a project site for installations during the training,” said Kumari, whose father works as a labourer in the local market and is the only earning member in her family of seven. “I was looking forward to starting work.”
But her parents did not allow her to take up work in the distant, remote places where solar projects are located without transport and washrooms. This constitutes a societal roadblock women face in joining India’s green energy workforce, according to officials overseeing India’s skilling programmes.
About 2,700 km away in Baku, Azerbaijan, which is hosting COP29, campaigners this week expressed despair over gender getting overlooked at the summit.
Negotiators have struggled to get agreement on renewing a programme to advance gender-responsive climate policies, as socially conservative countries stood in the way. Activists feared this would derail action to plug gender gaps like those already emerging in the green workforce as countries like India build their clean energy capacity.
The outside of the COP29 venue in Baku, Azerbaijan (Photo: Climate Home / Megan Rowling)
Green job roles not yet gendered
India is aiming for net-zero emissions by 2070 and a total shift to clean energy by 2050 – and has the potential to create 35 million green jobs by 2047, according to a government report on India’s green skills landscape.
But men make up 85% of all candidates who have undergone green skills training, data from the Skill Council for Green Jobs shows. Globally, women make up 32% of the clean energy workforce, according to a 2019 gender report by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). In India, this figure stands at just 11%.
“In this green transition, job roles are not (yet) culturally determined as feminine or masculine and it is a great opportunity to bring both men and women at the same level,” said Lorena Aguilar, a gender expert who leads the Kaschak Institute for Social Justice for Women and Girls and has developed strategies and action plans to mainstream gender in U.N. initiatives.
About two-thirds of the nearly 14 million jobs globally in the renewable energy sector are in Asia, according to an International Renewable Agency annual review last year, with solar the fastest-growing sector.
COP29 Bulletin Day 10: Battle over gender language leaves a bitter taste
While solar has thrown up jobs for technicians and helpers post-installation, these roles require schooling up to twelfth and ninth grade respectively, which many girls don’t have in rural India.
“Many of them drop out of school to help in agriculture,” said Arpit Sharma, who heads India’s Skill Council for Green Jobs, which was launched by the Indian government less than a decade ago and acts as the interface between industry and candidates it trains for the green sector.
Sharma said reluctance among families to send their daughters to a “male-dominated site” and not having toilets at projects were key reasons for low numbers of women.
“Women are able to do this work, but the conditions are not conducive. We are speaking to industry about creating at least washrooms on site, and training centres to induct more women,” said Sharma, adding that his expectation from COP29 was for the industry to come forward with finance for green skills training.
Greater focus on and funding of green skills will need to be accompanied with more dialogue on women’s participation at this global climate summit to help overcome mindset barriers, analysts said.
More women at top level, fewer on the ground
In India, coordinators at centres offering green skills training said they tell women applicants that these jobs are in remote locations and may not be ideal for them, which has led to very few signing up for the programmes.
This despite initiatives that have garnered global attention over the years. At COP29, speakers have cited the barefoot engineers case study of women spearheading solar panel installations and maintenance in a Rajasthan village for years and training other women to do so. And in India’s electric vehicle sector, women dominate shop-floors.
“More women are taking up climate and environmental sciences for their higher studies. In discussions on climate issues, I see a roomful of women. They are developers, are in think-tanks and in research,” said Vibhuti Garg, director for South Asia at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), who was at COP29 last week.
At the ground level, however, for women from some of India’s most marginalised communities, opportunities for learning and skilling are not always accessible.
“Creating a workforce from the community should be the goal. Industry needs to train students from the beginning. This would plug [the] demand-supply gap in skills. But that level of planning is not happening,” said Santosh Patnaik of Climate Action Network South Asia, adding that discussions at COP29 must focus on the needs of communities.
Green skills lag growing demand
A new LinkedIn report shows that by 2030, nearly one in five jobs requiring green skills could lack green talent to fill them, ballooning to one in two jobs by 2050 – a talking point at the ongoing COP29.
At multiple sessions on the demand-supply gap in green skills at the summit, industry leaders spoke of creating awareness and interest among young people for these jobs, through things like reality TV shows, and how a green future could see considerable labour workforce migration to plus these gaps.
“The demand for green skills is growing at twice the rate as supply. There is an intense competition for green skills… the intensity of competition will only grow,” said Allen Blue, co-founder of LinkedIn, speaking at a panel discussion on green skills in Baku last week.
LinkedIn co-founder Allen Blue (centre) at a panel discussion on green skills at the Baku Olympic Stadium, the COP29 venue in Baku Azerbaijan, November 15, 2024. (Photo: Roli Srivastava)
“Solar for She” push
This year, India launched a massive decentralised rooftop solar project, with the aim of providing free electricity to 10 million households nationwide to improve energy access, build renewable capacity and create jobs. Vendors have been enlisted from across the country to train youth to install solar panels.
While large solar projects don’t create jobs at scale for both men or women, decentralised projects such as this can, said Ajay Mathur, director general of the International Solar Alliance (ISA), speaking at COP29, adding that past experiences have shown that women make for a better solar workforce.
“The industry realises that. Women stick to jobs. But preliminary numbers, by far and large, do not reflect that,” he said, adding that the ISA has a “Solar for She” initiative to bring in more women into solar globally.
Back in India, the rooftop solar installation work is underway, with youth being enlisted for a 15-day training course to carry out the work, in and around their villages, a perfect opportunity for skilled women seeking solar work not too far from their homes.
But two on-the-ground coordinators of the training told Climate Home they were taking men as there was use of heavy machinery, as well as lifting and installation of panels on rooftops – tasks they believed were difficult for women.
In Rajasthan, Kumari said she hadn’t heard of the rooftop solar project. “I can work all hours, I have no difficulty lifting heavy weights. I have done this. I know this work,” she said.
This article was produced as part of the COP29 Cross-Border Energy Transition Reporting Fellowship, a programme organised by Clean Energy Wire and the Stanley Center for Peace and Security.
The post Weak gender focus at COP29 risks leaving women behind in greener future appeared first on Climate Home News.
Weak gender focus at COP29 risks leaving women behind in greener future
Discussing climate change can make a difference. Focusing on the impacts in everyday life is a good place to start, experts say.
When Bad Bunny climbed onto broken power lines during his Super Bowl halftime show, millions of viewers saw a spectacle. Climate communicators saw a lesson in how to talk about climate change.
Wondering How to Talk About Climate Change? Take a Lesson from Bad Bunny
Sydney, Thursday 19 March 2026 — In response to escalating attacks on gas fields in the Middle East, including Israeli strikes on Iran’s giant South Pars gas field and Iranian retaliations on gas fields in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the following lines can be attributed to Solaye Snider, Campaigner at Greenpeace Australia Pacific:
“The targeting of gas fields across the Middle East is a perilous escalation that reinforces just how vulnerable our fossil-fuelled world really is.
“Oil and gas have long been used as tools of power and coercion by authoritarian regimes. They cause climate chaos and environmental pollution and they drive conflict and war. The energy security of every nation still hooked on gas, including Australia, is under direct threat.
“For countries that are reliant on gas imports, like Sri Lanka, Pakistan and South Korea, this crisis is just getting started. It can take months to restart a gas export facility once it is shut down, meaning the shockwaves of these strikes will be felt for a long time to come.
“It is a gross and tragic injustice that while civilians are killed and lose their homes to this escalating violence, and families struggle with a tightening cost-of-living, gas giants like Woodside and Santos have seen their share prices surge on the prospect of windfall war profits.
“We must break this cycle. Transitioning to local renewable energy is the way to protect Australian households from the inherent volatility of fossil fuels like gas.”
-ENDS-
Images available for download via the Greenpeace Media Library
Media contact: Lucy Keller on 0491 135 308 or lkeller@greenpeace.org
Greenpeace response to escalating attacks on gas fields in Middle East
Climate Change
DeBriefed 20 March 2026: Energy crisis deepens | Brazil’s new climate plan | New Zealand climate case
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Iran war fallout continues
WORK FROM HOME: The International Energy Agency has advised its member countries to take 10 steps in response to the ongoing energy crisis fuelled by the Iran war, including reducing highway speeds and encouraging people to work from home, said the Guardian. It came after retaliatory attacks between Israel and Iran continued to destroy energy infrastructure in the Middle East, causing energy prices to soar further, said Reuters.
SUPPLY DISRUPTED: The IEA also said it is prepared to make more of its member nations’ 1.4bn-barrel oil reserves available to help ease the impacts of what it called the “biggest supply disruption in the history of the oil market”, reported Bloomberg. The outlet noted that Asian countries have been hit hardest by the shortages, caused by a “near-halt” of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
EU SUMMIT: The energy crisis dominated talks at an EU leaders summit on Thursday, said Politico. Arriving at the summit, Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez attacked other European leaders for using the energy crisis as an excuse to “gut climate policies”, according to the EU Observer. The Financial Times said that some European leaders have asked the European Commission to overhaul its flagship emissions trading system (ETS) by summer in response to the energy crisis.
COAL BOOST: In response to the conflict, utility companies in Asia are “boosting coal-fired power generation to cut costs and safeguard energy supply”, said Reuters. UN climate change executive secretary Simon Stiell told Reuters: “If there was ever a moment to accelerate that energy transition, breaking dependencies which have shackled economies, this is the time.”
Around the world
- WINDFARM WINDFALL: The Trump administration in the US is considering a nearly $1bn settlement with TotalEnergies to cancel the French energy company’s two planned windfarms off the US east coast and have it instead invest in fossil-gas infrastructure in Texas, according to documents seen by the New York Times.
- BUSINESS CLASH: Following “clashes” with the agribusiness sector, Brazil launched its new climate plan, which calls for a 49-58% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 2022 levels by 2025 and includes “specific guidelines for different sectors”, reported Folha de Sao Paolo.
- SALES SLUMP: Sales of liquified petroleum gas from India’s state-run oil companies have fallen by 17% this month due to cuts in deliveries to commercial and industrial consumers “amid the widespread logistical bottlenecks triggered by the Iran war”, said the Economic Times.
- CUBAN ENERGY CRISIS: The US imposed an “effective oil blockade” on Cuba, leaving the country facing its “worst energy crisis in decades”, reported the Washington Post. Meanwhile, Chinese exports of solar panels to the island have “skyrocketed” since 2023, it added.
- RECORD HIGHS: An “unprecedented” heatwave in the western and south-western US is “shattering dozens of temperature records” and could lead to drought in California in the coming months, reported the Los Angeles Times.
- VULNERABILITY CONCERNS: Landslides that killed more than 100 people in southern Ethiopia have “renewed concerns about Ethiopia’s vulnerability to climate-related disasters”, said the Addis Standard.
1%
The percentage of England’s land surface that could be devoted to renewables by 2050, according to the long-awaited “land-use framework” released by the UK government this week and covered by Carbon Brief.
Latest climate research
- Approaching international climate action by shifting the burden of mitigation onto higher-income countries could avoid 13.5 million premature deaths from air pollution in middle- and lower-income countries by 2050 | The Lancet Global Health
- Beavers can turn the ecosystems surrounding streams into “persistent” sinks of carbon that can sequester an order of magnitude more than non-beaver-modified ecosystems can store | Communications Earth & Environment
- Mobile-phone data from seven diverse countries during the summer heatwaves of 2022-23 showed a “widespread tendency to withdraw into homes” and an increase in out-of-home activities that can offer cooling, such as indoor retail | Environmental Research: Climate
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
Carbon Brief this week published a significant update to its map of how climate change is affecting extreme weather events around the world. The map now includes 232 new extreme weather events from studies published in 2024 and 2025. Of these events, 196 were made more severe or more likely to occur by human-driven climate change, 12 were made less severe or less likely to occur and 10 had no discernible human influence. (The remaining 14 studies were inconclusive.)
Spotlight
New Zealand breaks new ground on climate litigation
This week, Carbon Brief speaks to experts about a first-of-its-kind climate lawsuit in New Zealand.
Earlier this week, representatives from two environmentally focused legal advocacy groups challenged the New Zealand government’s climate-action plan in court.
The plaintiffs argued that the measures laid out in the plan are insufficient to achieve the country’s legal obligation to hold global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures.
The case could be “influential” in shaping lawsuits and rulings around the world, one legal expert not involved in the case told Carbon Brief.
Reductions vs removals
The new case contends that there are several issues regarding the New Zealand government’s response to climate change.
One of the key arguments the plaintiffs make is that New Zealand’s second emissions reduction plan, which covers the period from 2026-30, is overreliant on the use of tree-planting to achieve its targets.
When the plan was released in December 2024, it was “immediately clear that it was a pretty lacklustre plan”, Eliza Prestidge Oldfield, senior legal researcher at the Environmental Law Initiative, one of the groups behind the legal case, told Carbon Brief.
The plan called for large-scale planting of pine tree plantations, which are not native to New Zealand and have a high risk of burning. Because of this, there are concerns about how permanent any carbon removal provided by these plantations actually can be, experts told Carbon Brief.
Catherine Higham, senior policy fellow at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment who was not involved in the case, said:
“The lawyers are arguing that there are real challenges with equating the emissions that you may be able to remove from the atmosphere through afforestation with actual emissions reductions, which are much more certain.”
‘Global dialogue’
While other climate lawsuits elsewhere in the world have also focused on the inadequacy of a government’s plan to meet its stated emissions-reduction targets, this is the first such case that addresses the role of removals head-on.
Lucy Maxwell, co-director of the Climate Litigation Network, told Carbon Brief that the lawsuit “builds on a decade of climate litigation” in national, regional and international courts.
Maxwell, who was not involved in the New Zealand case, added that there is a “real global dialogue” between, not just plaintiffs, but national courts as well. She said:
“[National courts] look to common issues that have been decided in other countries. They’re not binding on that court if it’s at the national level, but they are influential.”
Given that many other countries have legal frameworks requiring their governments to create plans outlining the pathway to their long-term climate targets, Prestidge Oldfield told Carbon Brief that other jurisdictions “should be interested in these questions around the level of certainty”.
Higham noted that, even if the case is successful, addressing the plan’s shortfalls will face its own set of challenges. She told Carbon Brief:
“A lot of these decisions are political and they can be politically contentious…Those [measures] have to be put into action through legislation and that is then subject to the usual political process. So that’s where the challenge comes in.”
While she could not speculate on the outcome of the case, Prestidge Oldfield said it was “very heartening” to see that both the judge and the opposing counsel “appreciated how much of a concern climate change is globally”.
She added:
“It’s not a given that the judge would even be interested in climate change.”
Watch, read, listen
COMMON APPROACH: The Heated podcast analysed fossil-fuel advertisements and highlighted the most common deception tactics they employed.
THREAT ASSESSMENT: Mongabay mapped the potential threat that oil extraction poses to Venezuela’s ecosystems, including the Amazon rainforest and its coral reefs.
SALT LAKES? GREAT!: High Country News interviewed journalist Dr Caroline Tracey about her new book on saline lakes – such as Utah’s Great Salt Lake – the threats that face them and what they can teach us.
Coming up
- 23 March-2 April: Third meeting of the preparatory commission for the High Seas Treaty, New York
- 24-27 March: 64th session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Bangkok
- 26-29 March: 14th ministerial conference of the World Trade Organization, Yaoundé, Cameroon
Pick of the jobs
- International Centre of Research for the Environment and Development (CIRAD), IPCC chapter scientist | Salary: €3,200-3,750 per month. Location: Nogent-sur-Marne, France
- Avaaz, chief of staff | Salary: Dependent on location. Location: Remote, with preferred time zones
- Green Party, social media officer | Salary: £31,592-£32,192. Location: Remote or Westminster, UK
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
The post DeBriefed 20 March 2026: Energy crisis deepens | Brazil’s new climate plan | New Zealand climate case appeared first on Carbon Brief.
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