The climate crisis exacerbates existing inequalities and disproportionately affects those already in vulnerable situations, particularly women, youth, and communities with limited access to resources. Recognizing and integrating a gender perspective into climate action is essential to ensuring a just, inclusive, and sustainable transition.
Integrating gender perspectives into climate action is no longer an option; it has become an ethical, technical, and political imperative. For this transformation to occur consciously and effectively, it is crucial to promote both climate and gender literacy.
In this edition, we present a thematic glossary aimed at clarifying key concepts that intersect climate justice and gender equality. It brings together the main terms used in intersectional approaches between gender and climate change, serving as a tool for awareness, capacity building, and planning for professionals, policymakers, and civil society organizations.
This glossary is designed to help you navigate the key concepts at the intersection of gender and climate. Words that make it easier to understand the problem and, more importantly, to build fairer and more effective solutions.
Key Concepts
| SDG 5 | Gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls. |
| SDG 13 | Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. |
| Gender | (1) Gender is a constitutive element of social relations based on perceived differences between the sexes; and (2) it is a primary way of signifying power relations. (Joan Scott: [1988](1995, p. 86)) It is an analytical category used to understand sociocultural relations that define roles, expected behaviors, and interactions between men and women. It is intrinsically linked to socially and culturally constructed roles and the norms we are taught about being a man or a woman in our society (country, region, island, etc.). It is cultural, social, and historical in nature; socially determined; learned through education; dynamic and changeable; multifaceted; and it forms the basis of inequalities. This category invites reflection on the relationships between the sexes, power dynamics, and hierarchies that, in the context of climate change, shape how men and women experience and respond to its impacts. |
| Gender Inequality | The result of a historically and structurally unjust distribution of resources, power, and opportunities between men and women, which is further highlighted and exacerbated by climate crises and socio-economic dynamics. A legal, social, and cultural situation in which sex determines different rights and dignity for women and men, reflected in unequal access to or enjoyment of rights, as well as the adoption of stereotyped social and cultural roles (Meyer-Behjat, 2012). |
| Gender Equity | The possibility of differentiated treatment aimed at correcting inherent inequalities, ensuring equal benefits, rights, obligations, and opportunities. Fair treatment between genders with the goal of achieving equality of opportunities and outcomes. |
| Climate Justice | A principle that acknowledges the unequal impacts of climate change on vulnerable populations and proposes solutions based on social and environmental equity. |
| Female Leadership | The active participation of women in decision-making processes in all areas, particularly in contexts of climate vulnerability, as a tool for community transformation and resilience. |
| Women’s Empowerment | The process of strengthening women’s autonomy and decision-making power, particularly relevant in community adaptation to climate change. |
| Gender Mainstreaming | The cross-cutting integration of gender considerations in sectoral policies by incorporating and/or strengthening objectives, targets, and gender-disaggregated indicators in key sectors (e.g., water, energy, agriculture, fisheries), ensuring dedicated budgets and monitoring tools that reflect the specific needs of men and women. |
| Women’s Participation | The active involvement of women in actions and decision-making processes, particularly in local and national climate initiatives. |
| Gender-Responsive Climate Finance | Financial instruments that promote gender equity in access to resources. |
| Sex-Disaggregated Data | The collection of data differentiated by gender to identify inequalities and inform inclusive public policies. |
| Climate Resilience | The capacity of individuals, communities, and social and ecological systems to withstand, adapt to, and recover from the adverse impacts of climate change. |