Young women and girls are leading the charge on climate action, which disproportionately impacts them. With their fingers on the pulse of rapidly evolving technologies and gender dynamics in their communities, they provide pivotal perspectives on the best paths forward. Yet, they are largely underrepresented in decision-making.
With record-breaking global temperatures, violent conflict on the rise, and multilateralism under scrutiny with geopolitical fractures, the security of our future feels more uncertain than ever. The devastating impacts of climate change fuel conflict and pose security risks to all, but particularly vulnerable groups, including women and young people. As the international community increasingly recognizes the security implications of climate change, we must bridge the gap in policy agendas to integrate climate effectively and address this emerging security threat across silos. The Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda largely lacks an intergenerational lens and the Youth, Peace and Security (YPS) Agenda largely focuses on young men and boys. In an international system that can struggle to handle nuance with separate normative frameworks, where does that leave young women and girls?
International actors, policy forums, and decision-makers must strategically integrate aspects of the WPS and YPS agendas to leverage the valuable perspectives, ideas, and interventions of young women and girls in the climate space. As climate-linked security threats rise with global temperatures, we recommend four key actions to bridge agenda gaps and center the unique experiences and contributions of young women and girls for a more sustainable and secure future:
- Meaningfully include young women in the organization, agenda-setting, and climate policy discussions in forums such as the Conference of Parties (COP) and the Summit of the Future.
- Adopt more age- and gender-specific indicators for the Sustainable Development Goals in the 2025 Comprehensive Review.
- Incorporate more gender-sensitive language on climate in YPS resolutions and policies, and more age-sensitive language on climate in WPS resolutions and policies in the Security Council.
- Develop age- and gender-responsive National Action Plans at the national government level on climate, WPS and YPS in consultation with young women, and allocate funding for climate programming within these plans.
Understanding the gap
Climate change has been increasingly recognized as a “threat multiplier” by exacerbating existing drivers of instability such as displacement, loss of livelihoods, and resource competition, all of which threaten peace and security. As the world fails to meet targets to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, climate-related threats will only intensify. While climate change poses risks to all, vulnerable groups such as young people, women and girls are disproportionately impacted and will pay the highest price. 80 percent of people who are displaced by climate change are women and 90 percent of young people live in developing countries that are more susceptible to the effects of climate change.
The Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda as we know it today was established with the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), which formally recognized the unique risks women face as well as the active, positive role they can and must play in peace and security matters. In an ever-changing world, the WPS Agenda must continuously evolve and adapt to changing contexts and emerging threats like climate change. In response to the shifting global security landscape, the link between the impacts of climate change and women, peace and security was acknowledged in UNSCR 2242 (2015), placing climate squarely on the WPS Agenda.
That same year, the Security Council also formally recognized young people’s critical role in building and maintaining peace and security with the adoption of UNSCR 2250 (2015), establishing the Youth, Peace and Security (YPS) Agenda. Not only are young people playing an active role in peace processes and conflict resolution, but they are also on the frontlines of climate adaptation innovation and climate activism. While the links to climate security are weaker in the YPS Agenda than in the WPS Agenda, YPS Resolution 2535 (2020) does emphasize the importance of youth involvement in humanitarian planning to respond to “increasingly frequent and severe weather events and natural disasters.”
While women and young people largely have different challenges, concerns, and perspectives that should not be lumped together, the WPS and YPS agendas are complementary. UNSC Resolutions 1325 and 2250 are mutually-reinforcing frameworks that can guide the valuable positioning of young women in peace and security if implemented inclusively. By taking an intersectional approach to age and gender in the climate space, we can better understand the lived experiences of young women and the key role they play in advancing climate security.
Connecting the dots
More than 1.8 billion young people aged 10-24, including 600 million girls and young women, are alive today, the largest youth population in history. Although they have been historically marginalized in peace and security discussions, young women are uniquely situated as agents of change to advance climate action and security. When Dr. Alaa Murabit founded The Voice of Libyan Women at 21, the organization was overlooked for significant gender-related resources because it was seen as just another youth group. “We were not considered women, we were ‘young,’” she said. This follows a pattern in the international system where programming and aid that is earmarked for one specific group or another tends to leave young women out.
However, young women and girls are already actively engaged in climate adaptation, innovation, and environmental peacebuilding. Young women have their fingers on the pulse of rapidly evolving technologies and social media as well as gender dynamics in their communities, which provide unique perspectives on how to address and utilize these resources in climate action. For example, Constanza Levicán was a university student when she launched her startup, Suncast, which applies Artificial Intelligence to optimize the efficiency of renewable energies in Chile and Mexico. In Colombia, young women are organizing and galvanizing support for climate action across generations and indigenous communities while engaging with policy mechanisms such as the Generation Equality Forum. The growing number of youth groups organizing for climate action can partially be attributed to the FridaysforFuture movement led by Greta Thunberg, whose prominent climate activism has inspired young women around the world. One of those young women is Vanessa Nakate, the first Fridays for Future climate activist in Uganda and founder of the Rise Up Climate Movement. But young people are not a monolith. Nakate emphasizes the need for diverse voices in the climate movement, saying “It’s important to listen to every experience of every activist and every woman speaking up. I may be in Uganda and have a clear understanding of what’s happening on the ground, but I might not have full knowledge of what is happening in Kenya, for example. We might all have the same vision, but there are differences in our experiences and stories and it is that difference that matters.”
Towards an integrated policy approach to WPS and YPS
There has been a positive push for more youth representation and platforms for young people to engage in climate policy spaces. UN Secretary-General (SG) António Guterres has made youth engagement one of the 12 commitments under Our Common Agenda, particularly on climate. In line with the UN system-wide youth strategy, Youth2030, the new UN Youth office was established in the Secretariat. Last year, the SG announced a group of seven Youth Advisors on Climate Change. The flagship youth day at the 28th Conference of Parties (COP28) hosted the first ever Youth Stocktake, which offered an analysis of youth participation at the COPs and broader climate policy. However, what was missing from the conversation was a comprehensive intersectional analysis of the differentiated experiences of girls and young women as half of the youth constituency.
Unfortunately, the number of women involved in climate negotiations has stagnated in recent years without ever reaching gender parity. Young women face even more obstacles to political representation due to both gender and age discrimination. The infrastructure, momentum, and mechanisms for meaningful youth engagement in climate decisions are continuing to grow, but to be truly inclusive, they must take an inclusive approach that includes girls and young women in all their diversity.
Normative frameworks and international policy agendas must break down silos and embrace the intersectionality of age and gender in order to deliver effective solutions for climate-related challenges and security threats. There are valuable opportunities to advance an integrated approach through the implementation of the Secretary-General’s Our Common Agenda and A New Agenda for Peace, as well as the upcoming Summit of the Future. At this critical juncture for multilateralism, women and young people belong at the center of discussions on how we can best address the changing security landscape and emerging challenges like climate change facing generations to come.
Conclusion and Recommendations
As we look ahead to COP30 and work to catalyze collective action to combat climate change, effective solutions must be inclusive and bridge silos in international normative agendas. To promote inclusion in climate action, we recommend four key actions that policymakers, donors, and practitioners can take to advance these efforts:
- Prioritize the meaningful inclusion of young women in the organization, agenda-setting, and climate policy discussions in forums such as COP and the Summit of the Future. Young women’s meaningful participation and leadership in these critical forums will ensure the agendas reflect their real-life challenges and contributions, making these decision-making forums more inclusive and effective at finding sustainable solutions. The latest draft of the Pact of the Future has substantial language on climate change, youth, gender, and peace separately, but the final draft must go further to recognize their intersectionality and interdependence.
- Adopt more age- and gender-specific indicators for the Sustainable Development Goals in the 2025 Comprehensive Review. The indicators are currently under a review process that is conducted by the Inter-agency and Expert Group on SDG Indicators every five years. While gender and climate are squarely on the sustainable development agenda with SDG 5 on Gender Equality and SDG 13 on Climate Action, youth inclusion is more of a cross-cutting theme. In the ongoing review process leading up to updating SDG indicators in 2025, the expert group has an opportunity to improve the framework to reflect the differentiated role of young women by adding more age- and gender-responsive indicators across all SDGs, but particularly SDG 5 on Gender Equality, SDG 13 on Climate Action, and SDG 16 on Peaceful and Inclusive Societies.
- Incorporate more gender-sensitive language on climate in YPS resolutions and policies, and more age-sensitive language on climate in WPS resolutions and policies in the Security Council. Building on precedent language recognizing climate change as a WPS issue in UNSCR 2242 (2015) and language in YPS resolutions 2419 (2018) and 2535 (2020) recognizing gender inequalities putting young women at particular risk, intersectional language should be strengthened in UNSC resolutions across the WPS and YPS agendas. To effectively address threats to international peace and security as the Security Council is designed to do, resolutions must recognize how populations are differently impacted by security risks, including those caused by climate change.
- Develop age- and gender-responsive National Action Plans on WPS and YPS in consultation with young women, and increase the integration of climate and allocation of funding for climate programming within these plans. National and local governments can implement more effective climate programming by outlining plans for supporting young women in their National Action Plans that engage various sectors across the government. NAPs can offer an important mechanism for advancing inclusive climate action nationally, but planning must be matched with sufficient funding and resources to promote young women’s participation in climate programming at the state and local levels.
Interconnected challenges call for integrated responses. Climate change poses significant risks to peace and security, and young women and girls already face unique challenges and threats. Approaches to address these compounding issues must bridge the gaps between the Women, Peace and Security and the Youth, Peace and Security Agendas for climate action to ultimately create a more secure future for all, especially for young women and girls. There is no climate security without the meaningful participation and leadership of young women, who are already leading the charge.
