Tackling climate change and gender justice – integral; not optional

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between gender justice and climate change, arguing that, to meaningfully address the issues that arise in this context, it is imperative to engage not only with matters of principle, but also with the practicalities of gender exclusion in respect of climate change itself and the praxis of global climate governance. The discussion briefly considers key gendered societal and scientific contexts that form part of the complex substrate that situates climate change in reality, academic and political debate, and which ground and shape the global climate change regime. These considerations explain why, while there is now a systemic acknowledgment of the need to act on gender issues in principle in the UNFCCC regime, the effectiveness of recently adopted strategies is not a given, and more profoundly, it behoves us to consider how their efficacy might be improved as we seek to mature global climate governance.