The stakes for advancing bold, inclusive climate action and ensuring women’s voices shape the next decade of global climate policy at COP30 in Brazil this November could not be higher. Insights from the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Conflict Tracker show how climate change is intensifying existing security risks for women—from drought-driven food shortages in the Sahel to climate disasters and floods in Southeast Asia—risks that will worsen without urgent action to mitigate the most severe potential climate scenarios. Ten years on from the Paris Agreement, rising authoritarianism and attacks on women’s rights globally set a difficult scene for climate talks. At this critical moment, negotiators must double down on gender-responsive climate policies to ensure no one is left behind on the road to COP30 and beyond.
What’s at Stake: A Turning Point for Climate Talks
COP30 offers a crucial chance to rebuild trust in multilateralism by strengthening international cooperation for the next decade of ambitious, inclusive climate action. This is especially urgent given the Trump Administration’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and cuts to vital climate finance, which risk undermining global momentum just as scientists warn that the window for avoiding the worst climate impacts is rapidly closing. The first global stocktake (GST) at COP28 was a reality check: the world is far off track to meet the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C target and avert irreversible climate impacts. This also has implications for women’s safety, as the UN reports that every 1°C rise in temperature is associated with a 4.7 percent rise in intimate partner violence. Now is the time for countries to recommit to urgent emissions reductions to keep the goals of the Paris Agreement alive and protect the most vulnerable, not backtrack on climate commitments.
As leaders gather at the Bonn Climate Conference this month, all eyes are on how Parties will navigate negotiations on key issues like adaptation, mitigation, just transition, loss and damage, climate finance, and gender amid a shifting geopolitical landscape. The COP30 Brazilian Presidency’s call for a “Global Mutirão,” or global mobilization to accelerate climate action, demands the meaningful inclusion of women and girls across all levels of climate mobilization.
Following tense debates over gender language in 2024, Parties at COP29 agreed to extend the Enhanced Lima Work Programme on Gender by a decade. Negotiations on a new Gender Action Plan (GAP) for that programme will begin in Bonn, which will be a key mechanism for promoting gender balance and integrating gender considerations into climate action if Parties can agree on a plan that is intersectional, conflict-sensitive, and comprehensive.
Scaling-up Inclusive Climate Commitments Through NDCs
Ahead of COP30, countries have a chance to make their plans to reduce emissions, or nationally determined contributions (NDCs), more gender-responsive and aligned with the vision of a “Global Mutirão.” After over 90 percent of Parties missed the initial February cutoff to submit their 2025-2035 NDCs, the UN extended the deadline to September. This gives Parties a chance to ensure their most current plans are inclusive and meet the urgency demanded by the global stocktake, which calls for global emissions to peak this year at the latest and fall 43 percent by 2030 to keep an only 1.5°C increase in reach. This year’s NDCs can begin to galvanize collective momentum around the next decade of climate action with specific targets and significantly bolder commitments to reduce carbon emissions and avert climate breakdown.
In addition to bolder mitigation measures, countries should systematically integrate gender considerations into the drafting, implementation, and monitoring of NDCs to ensure they reflect a whole-of-society approach that is people-centered and gender-responsive. The Gender and Climate Policy Scorecard offers a useful model for this. NDCs can be more inclusive by enabling access to green jobs and sustainable livelihoods for women, employing gender-disaggregated data and indicators, and setting targets for increasing women’s participation in climate adaptation and decision-making. Many countries have already made progress–85 percent of NDC 2.0 referenced gender in 2021, up from 29 percent of NDC 1.0 in 2016–but this year, countries can go further to strengthen gender-responsive implementation, access to climate finance, and monitoring processes.
Shaping the Next Decade of Action on Gender and Climate
Parties need to adopt a strong and comprehensive gender action plan at COP30 to lay a foundation for accelerating gender mainstreaming and prioritizing the needs of those whom climate change will affect the most throughout the next ten years of global climate governance, especially at a moment when language on gender and inclusion is being challenged. To avoid siloing gender as work on the next GAP begins this month in Bonn, negotiators should take an intersectional approach and strengthen coherence with other key climate frameworks and emerging priorities on the COP Presidency’s Action Agenda.
The GAP presents an opportunity to incorporate conflict-sensitive mechanisms for women to participate in decision-making and access climate finance, which will better reflect the intersectional and differentiated experiences of women facing climate impacts across the gender-climate-security nexus. The next GAP should establish mechanisms for engaging with stakeholders like the Fragility Network and the Baku Climate and Peace Action Hub to build capacity for gender-responsive implementation in fragile contexts. It should also enhance collaboration with the Adaptation Fund, Green Climate Fund, GEF, and the private sector to expand climate finance access for grassroots women’s organizations and local communities, with a focus on women in conflict-affected areas.
COP30: A Decisive Moment for Gender-responsive Climate Action
COP30 represents a pivotal opportunity to redefine what inclusive, effective climate leadership looks like. As the climate crisis accelerates and conflicts intensify, gender-responsive climate action is central to resilience, justice, and peace. The negotiations this month in Bonn can lay the groundwork for a next-generation gender action plan that reflects the lived realities of women and girls on the frontlines of intersecting climate and conflict impacts. With the window to limit global warming to 1.5°C rapidly closing, the world cannot afford half-measures. Earlier this year, COP30 CEO Ana Toni said herself that countries need to bolster climate efforts or risk war. COP30 must be the turning point where inclusive climate action becomes the standard for accelerating efforts to build a more climate-resilient, secure, and sustainable future for all.