Recommendations for COP30 and Beyond: Positioning the Women, Peace and Security Agenda as a Core Pillar of Climate Security and Resilience

November 11, 2025

• Tamara Bah

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The Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) Agenda, established by the UN Security Council, recognizes that women’s participation, protection, and leadership are not just rights issues, they are foundational to sustaining peace. As climate change increasingly drives displacement, resource scarcity, and instability, WPS principles are directly relevant to climate adaptation, resilience, and governance. Women are not only disproportionately affected by climate impacts; they are agents of change. When meaningfully included in decision-making, they design locally grounded adaptation strategies, strengthen early warning systems, and improve the long-term durability of both climate and peace outcomes. 

Integrating WPS and gender inclusion principles into climate policy is not a “social add-on” but a key source of resilience, security, economic imperative, and a core enabler of climate security, adaptation, and just transitions. The 30th Conference of the Parties (COP30) provides a pivotal opportunity to operationalize WPS in the climate conversation. Embedding women’s leadership, finance, and local capacity into climate policy while addressing the risks of ecocide is essential for achieving the Paris Agreement goals and ensuring no one is left behind. 

2025 Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security (GIWPS) research shows that countries advancing women’s inclusion, justice, and security are also better prepared to manage climate risks. Women’s leadership, access to resources, and decision-making power accelerate adaptation, strengthen livelihoods, and ensure the transition to low-carbon, climate-resilient development leaves no one behind.

The following recommendations result from the inputs of diverse experts on climate and gender and are intended for a broad range of actors, from national governments and states, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Secretariat, the COP Bureau, and Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI), Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA), and climate finance boards (Green Climate Fund, Global Environment Facility, and Adaptation Fund) to local women’s organizations, Indigenous groups, and grassroots actors. These recommendations aim to embed WPS principles across climate governance, finance, and resilience systems, ensuring that peace, security, justice, and environmental integrity are central to global climate security and adaptation.

1. Women’s Representation & Negotiation Capacity at COP 

Key Challenges: 

• Persistent underrepresentation of women: Women comprised only 31% of party delegations at COP28 in 2024, the same as in 2013, showing stagnation in gender representation at high-level climate negotiations.
  
• COP29 representation: Women made up 35% of party delegations and 33% of deputies and delegation leaders, reflecting global trends but highlighting gaps in diversity.
  
• Diversity gaps: Indigenous women, women from ethnic minorities, and women with disabilities remain severely underrepresented in climate delegations.
  
• Barriers to participation: High costs, visa/travel restrictions, lack of institutional gender support, and structural inequalities prevent grassroots leaders and women from small and fragile states, especially SIDS, from attending COP and pre-COP sessions.
  
• Leadership deficit: There is a persistent lack of lead female negotiators, reducing women’s influence in shaping global climate agreements.
  
• Consensus-driven processes: COP negotiations prioritize compromise over ambition, often sidelining women’s issues and delaying commitments to women’s leadership, participation, and targeted financing.

COP30 Recommendations for National Governments/States, UNFCCC Secretariat, COP Bureau, SBI/SBSTA, and Climate Finance Boards: 

Strengthen women’s negotiation power and leadership across delegations, ministries, and climate institutions. Parties, the UNFCCC Secretariat, and the COP Bureau should institutionalize gender expertise requirements, ensure Gender Action Plan resources are fully accessible, and remove barriers that limit participation, such as funding, travel, and logistical constraints, particularly for Small Island Developing States (SIDS), and Indigenous, grassroots, and other underrepresented women. Supporting diverse and lead female negotiators will ensure gender-responsive positions, elevate marginalized perspectives, and improve the effectiveness, equity, and sustainability of climate decisions.

• Mandate all national COP delegations, climate ministries, councils, and adaptation fund boards to include qualified gender experts and ensure balanced representation of women of at least 40 percent, including Indigenous, grassroots, and underrepresented groups, in lead or decision-making roles. 

• Establish a legally recognized funding window within existing climate funds to provide dedicated, predictable, multi-year financing for the Gender Action Plan on Climate Change, ensuring resources reach national and local implementation and women’s local organizations, including support for Indigenous, grassroots, and underrepresented women. 

• Mandate the UNFCCC Secretariat and COP Bureau to establish a pre-COP gender capacity and coordination mechanism for SIDS and smaller delegations at least six months before COP, providing dedicated funding, mentorship, and technical support, such as negotiation workshops and simulation exercises for women and grassroots negotiators, and track their contributions to negotiation outcomes.

• Revise COP decision-making procedures to ensure that consensus rules cannot delay or block gender agenda items, including mechanisms for advance agreement, protected negotiation time for gender issues, and reporting on progress to hold Parties accountable.

• Ensure formal registration, travel support, and a dedicated fund for Indigenous, ethnic minority, and grassroots women delegates, and establish minimum national participation quotas to guarantee their representation in COP negotiations. 

2. Gender-Responsive Climate Finance Architecture

Key Challenges:

• Adaptation finance is high-return: Strong adaptation measures can deliver up to four times their cost, yet women on the frontlines receive very little funding: only 3% of adaptation finance targeted gender equality in 2022, and 0.01% addressed both climate and women’s empowerment.
  
• Women drive effective adaptation: Women lead community-level adaptation (early warning systems, water management, food security), and excluding them from funding undermines resilience programs and climate outcomes.
  
• Economic case for investing in women: Supporting women globally could add $1 trillion USD to GDP, reduce income losses from climate shocks in LMICs, and avoid trillions in economic losses annually.
  
• Strategic climate impact: Directing finance to women and women’s organizations strengthens adaptation capacity, enhances peace and community cohesion, and delivers high social and climate returns—central to COP29 and COP30 agendas like the “Baku-to-Belem Roadmap.”

COP30 Recommendations for Multilateral Climate Funds and Development Partners (UNFCCC, GCF/GEF, MDBs, UN Agencies), Bilateral Donors, and the Private Sector: 

Multilateral climate funds and development partners should redirect adaptation finance to women-led initiatives and local actors on the frontlines of climate insecurity, ensuring resources are allocated in measurable, accountable ways and prioritizing Indigenous, grassroots, and marginalized women in fragile and conflict-affected contexts.

Implementation Mechanisms:

• Scale up concessional financing by establishing dedicated funding windows that allocate at least 30 percent of adaptation finance to women-led cooperatives, small-to-medium enterprises, and local associations in fragile and conflict-affected (FCV) settings. Require transparent reporting on disbursement, participation, and measurable outcomes, and provide technical support and capacity-building to ensure funds reach intended beneficiaries effectively.

• Scale up the Global Climate Resilience Fund for Women to support and protect women against extreme heat, floods, and coastal erosion. For example, building on insights from the 2022 Bellagio conference and GIWPS’s collaboration with the Rockefeller Foundation and the Self-Employed Women’s Association, an innovative insurance fund developed to support women working in extreme heat, providing pay when temperatures reach unsafe levels (e.g.a micro-insurance scheme for heat exposure).

• Restructure climate finance architectures to channel funding to protect the environment (e.g., free, prior, and informed consent or FPIC, mitigation, disclosure) and social safeguards (e.g., inclusion, protection, redress) for female climate activists, peacebuilders, and human rights defenders; and support bilateral and multilateral mechanisms to provide digital, physical, and psychosocial support to defenders and activists who face acute risks due to their work.

• Establish dedicated funding programs for women-led agricultural initiatives, including community seed banks, regenerative farming practices, and drought-resistant crop programs. Require grantees to track women’s participation, adoption rates, crop yields, and improvements in local food security, and provide technical assistance and training specifically for women farmers to ensure effective implementation and equitable impact.

• Embed performance-based contracts and results-based financing that link disbursements to measurable outcomes in women’s leadership and climate security, require implementing partners to provide training and technical support, release funding in phases tied to milestones, and mandate standardized reporting on progress and impact. For example, financially rewarding governments who provide equitable access to safely managed water supply, improved wastewater, electricity, and sanitation, including menstrual hygiene kits; or incentivizing  a quota to have women participate in local disaster risk management committees in leadership positions.

• Require all major climate funds and bonds (green, blue, and other instruments) to include mandatory gender indicators that track women’s leadership, participation, and benefits across infrastructure, nature-based solutions (NbS), water, energy, and local adaptation projects. Implement standardized reporting, integrate these indicators into funding decisions, and tie disbursements to measurable gender-responsive outcomes.

• Traditional climate  finance mechanisms should be reformed to explicitly account for care responsibilities, displacement, and informal livelihoods, ensuring post-conflict and post-disaster funding reaches affected women like female-headed households, elderly, women with disabilities, and Indigenous women.

3. Women’s Climate Adaptation, Livelihoods, and Productive Systems

Key Challenges:

• Women disproportionately affected: Climate-induced displacement, loss of livelihoods, early marriage, and care burdens hit women and girls hardest, especially in fragile contexts like South Sudan.
• Gender gaps in adaptation planning: While most NAPs mention gender, only ~50% recognize women as agents of change, and just 32% include gender-responsive means of implementation (funding, capacity-building, leadership roles).
• Gender equality strengthens resilience: Evidence shows that each 1% increase in gender equality boosts climate adaptation capacity by 0.39%, and countries with higher women’s inclusion, justice, and security are more climate-resilient.
• Strategic imperative: Integrating women into adaptation, loss-and-damage finance, and resilience planning is essential for equitable, effective, and sustainable climate, economic, and peace outcomes.

COP30 Recommendations for National Governments and Delegations, Multilateral Climate Funds and Development Partners, Local Women’s Organizations, and Indigenous and Grassroots Actors:

Integrate measures designed to address the specific needs, roles, and leadership of women and underrepresented groups like Indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities, and persons with visible and non-visible disabilities into National Adaptation Plans (NAPs). This should include dedicated budgets, specific targets for women’s participation and leadership, and monitoring mechanisms with gender-disaggregated indicators to track progress by gender identity through the Global Goal on Adaptation indicators.

Implementation Mechanisms:

• Allocate at least 20% of adaptation finance in fragile and conflict-affected states to women-led climate-resilient livelihood projects, with annual reporting on funds disbursed, number of women beneficiaries, and measurable improvements in food security, income, and local resource management.

• Require National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and Just Transition strategies to include targets for women’s leadership and participation, such as having women lead committees or decision-making roles in renewable energy, agriculture, and climate resilience initiatives, supported by technical assistance and mentorship programs.

• Provide women’s dedicated access to productive assets, including housing, land, and property (HLP) rights, credit, technology, and skills in renewable energy, regenerative agriculture, and climate-smart value chains, through dedicated funding windows, legal safeguards, and training programs.

• Embed livelihood protection measures into peacebuilding, humanitarian, and loss-and-damage programs, such as cash-for-work schemes, insurance, and social safety nets, ensuring women are actively involved in program design, implementation, and monitoring, with clear reporting on participation and outcomes.

4. Women’s Urban Resilience and Early Warning 

Key Challenges: 

• Women face disproportionate climate risks: In fragile contexts like Myanmar, women and girls suffer the most during climate disasters—14 times more likely to die than men—and exclusion from decision-making can be life-threatening.
  
• Women’s knowledge is critical: Indigenous and local women’s networks are essential for effective early warning systems, climate risk management, and community resilience, yet are often under-engaged or under-resourced.
  
• Loss and damage mechanisms are gender-blind: Recovery efforts frequently fail to address women’s specific needs, particularly for Indigenous, rural, and low-income women, reducing effectiveness of adaptation and livelihood recovery.
  
• Strategic imperative for inclusion: Prioritizing women’s leadership, participation, and protection in adaptation and loss-and-damage programs strengthens equitable, effective, and resilient recovery and climate outcomes.

COP30 Recommendation: 

Require urban resilience projects, early warning systems, and loss-and-damage programs to include women in leadership and technical roles, track gender-disaggregated outcomes, and to ensure that design, implementation, and recovery measures meet the needs of women and girls, including Indigenous, rural, and low-income communities.

Implementation Mechanisms:

• Allocate dedicated loss-and-damage finance for women and women-led organizations in fragile and conflict-affected contexts, ensuring funding supports livelihood recovery, early-warning systems, and care responsibilities. Programs should require women’s participation in design, decision-making, and monitoring, with annual reporting on funds disbursed and measurable outcomes for women’s resilience and leadership.

• Require every national and municipal climate, infrastructure, and disaster-risk plan to include a mandatory gender and environmental assessment, with clearly assigned staff responsible for collecting sex-disaggregated data, conducting vulnerability mapping, and reporting progress annually to the Climate Ministry or municipal authority.

• Mandate that at least 35 percent of decision-making positions in urban and coastal early warning design, heat adaptation strategies, and climate-resilient infrastructure projects are held by women, with a special focus on women from Indigenous, rural, and marginalized communities. Include quotas for leadership roles in project steering or disaster risk management committees and technical advisory boards.

• Implement government- and donor-funded programs to provide hands-on training for women’s organizations in disaster response, nature-based solutions, and digital early warning systems. Tie funding to measurable outcomes, such as the number of trained leaders who actively participate in local climate governance, disaster drills, or community adaptation projects within a 12-month period.

5. Gender Dimensions of the Water–Energy Nexus

Key Challenges: 

• Women underrepresented in water and energy sectors: Globally, women make up only 18% of the water and sanitation workforce, ~20% of energy jobs, and 26% of leadership roles in water institutions, limiting their influence on resilient infrastructure.
• Disproportionate impacts: Poorly managed or unreliable water and energy systems disproportionately burden women, increasing exposure to gender-based violence, time poverty, reduced economic autonomy, and social stress in coal-dependent and resource-constrained communities.
• Opportunities from energy transitions: Technologies like solar stoves and lanterns can improve women’s health, reduce manual labor, and expand economic and social opportunities.
• Gender-blind Just Transition frameworks: Many transition policies exclude women from decision-making and benefit-sharing, highlighting the urgent need for gender-responsive measures to ensure equitable participation, leadership, and outcomes.

COP30 Recommendations for National Governments, Utilities, and Climate Finance Institutions:

Ensure that every local and national water, energy, and Just Transition plan includes assessments that address key gender gaps in the sector and support women’s leadership and security linked to Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and National Adaptation Plans (NAPs); increase women’s leadership in utilities and user associations with resourced focal offices; expand targeted finance models for women and female-headed households to access renewable energy and water infrastructure; and invest in vocational training and apprenticeships to build women’s technical capacity in system maintenance and resilience.

Implementation Mechanisms:

• Include gender and environmental assessments and targets into local and national water, energy, and Just Transition strategies consistent with national climate plans like  Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and National Adaptation Plans (NAPs). Assign specific staff in ministries to collect sex-disaggregated data, conduct vulnerability mapping, and report progress annually.

• Mandate that at least 40% of leadership and technical positions in utilities, user associations, and oversight boards be held by women, including Indigenous, rural, and marginalized women. Establish resourced gender focal offices in ministries to oversee recruitment, track participation, and ensure women have decision-making power.

• Develop microfinance, subsidies, and pay-as-you-go (PAYG) schemes specifically for women  (e.g., Indigenous women, women from ethnic minorities, and women with visible and non-visible disabilities) to access renewable energy systems (solar, mini-grids, clean cookstoves) and water infrastructure. Prioritize programs in flood- and climate-vulnerable regions, linking finance disbursement to demonstrable adoption rates and usage.

• Launch government and donor-funded programs to train women in renewable energy, water system maintenance, and climate-resilient infrastructure. Link training completion to employment, community adaptation projects, or certification, with annual tracking of participants, placement rates, and local resilience outcomes.