Mainstreaming Climate, Mainstreaming Gender

Climate change and gender inequality are both crosscutting issues that isolated government departments or ministries cannot solve, but instead need to be integrated into all policy sectors and at all stages of decision-making. This is the principle of mainstreaming, also known as policy integration or a whole-of-government approach. This year’s 30^th anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action, which is normally cited as the origin of gender mainstreaming, shines a light on progress – or lack of progress – towards its objectives. It also invites us to revisit the concept of mainstreaming, its radical transformative potential and some of the obstacles to its full realisation. Taking the EU as a case study, I look at the challenges associated with trying to mainstream both climate change and gender into policy, and propose some possible solutions.

The EU has a long-standing commitment to gender equality and to gender mainstreaming (along with targeted actions) as a means to achieve it. We see this in the Treaty (TFEU), in the Gender Equality Strategy and in the third Gender Action Plan, for example. We could therefore reasonably expect gender to be mainstreamed into EU climate policy, as well as all other areas of EU internal and external action. However, research has repeatedly shown that this is not the case.

What has gender got to do with climate change?

In Europe, as elsewhere, the impact of climate change is different for different groups and individuals. Pre-existing inequalities mean that some groups and individuals will be more harshly affected than others and will not have the same resources required to adapt to the effects of climate change. Gender is one of the most pervasive inequalities in societies all around the world. One of the main ways in which people are differently impacted by climate change is because of their gender. For example, women are more likely to be in poverty than men, particularly lone parents and older women. For these reasons, women are more likely to live in housing which is exposed to floods or difficult to cool in hot weather. They are more likely to be in poor health, and they are more likely to experience energy poverty, making it even more difficult to adapt to the effects of climate change.

Gender and climate research demonstrates clearly that gender affects exposure to climate change; vulnerability to its impact; access to knowledge and resources for adaptation and resilience; decision-making and leadership; attitudes and behaviour; contribution to greenhouse gas emissions; the creation, preservation and restoration of carbon sinks; waste, recycling and consumption; and energy use and energy saving. For example, men are more likely to own and drive a car, less willing to recycle, and dominate climate decision-making. Men also form the vast majority of the ‘super-emitters’ who contribute disproportionately to greenhouse gas emissions. Frequent-flying super emitters, representing just 1% of the world’s population, caused half of aviation’s carbon emissions in 2018. Studies also show that heatwaves kill more women than men, and that cases of gender-based violence increase in the aftermath of climate disasters.

However, women are not a homogenous group, any more than men are. Gender intersects with other structural inequalities, including class, ethnicity, physical ability or geographical location, to amplify or reduce these differences. We therefore need to ask which inequalities matter in any particular case. An intersectional approach looks at the way these structural inequalities combine to produce new forms of disadvantage and marginalization. At the same time, however, given the pervasiveness of gender inequality, we must not lose sight of gender as a key marker of inequality in relation to climate change.

Gender mainstreaming in EU climate policy

Rhetorical commitments to gender mainstreaming are widespread in EU policy documents and statements. For example, in its updated NDC (Nationally Determined Contribution – the report that all parties to the Paris Agreement submit to the UNFCCC) (2023), the EU and its member states confirm that: ‘The EU is committed to promoting a human rights-based and gender-responsive approach to climate action [and] full, equal and meaningful participation and engagement of women in climate-related decision-making.’

Another example is the EU’s report on the UNFCCC’s Gender Action Plan Activity (2024), in which it states that ‘the EU and its member states agree that mainstreaming gender is still one of the biggest challenges and thus a main priority’. It goes on to say that ‘there are still many areas in which consideration of gender could be improved.’

These overarching statements of commitment to gender equality are not meaningless. They could indicate sophisticated understanding of what gender mainstreaming entails and what the goal of gender equality means, along with a genuine commitment on the part of all actors to ensuring that gender mainstreaming is carried out.

But the evidence does not seem to support this.

Even if gender equality is present in the form of overarching statements, it tends to disappear before these policies are implemented. 70% of EU climate mitigation measures and 90% of EU adaptation measures are implemented by local and regional authorities. This makes it particularly significant that the Handbook on Implementing the European Green Deal, produced by the European Committee of the Regions, is very scant on references to gender and is certainly not gender mainstreamed. One of the few mentions of gender notes that women are more likely to be affected by transport poverty, that car-reliant infrastructure may exacerbate gender gaps and reduce over-all accessibility and that ‘as transport users, women, children and the elderly have specific needs’.

But when you work out what proportion of the population ‘women, children and the elderly’ represent, it comes to 68%. This means that more than two thirds of the EU population are described as ‘transport users with specific needs’, whereas adult men, who make up 32% of the population, are understood to be the norm. Mainstream policy, including climate, energy and transport, is assumed to be gender-neutral, with a few exceptions. Women are consistently represented as exceptions to the norm, with specific needs.

The main EU climate policy documents still largely ignore gender. This includes the European Green Deal (EGD), the EU’s long-term cross-sectoral strategy to realise the transition to carbon neutrality by 2050; Fit for 55, the first package of measures to be introduced under the umbrella of the EGD setting out actions needed to achieve a 55 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, relative to 1990 levels, by 2030; and the Climate Law, adopted in 2021.

A rare exception is the EU Regulation establishing a Social Climate Fund, which highlights women’s disproportionate exposure to energy and transport poverty, and draws attention to the groups most at risk: single mothers, women with disabilities, and elderly women living alone. It states that gender mainstreaming should be promoted throughout the preparation and implementation of Social Climate Plans. However, when it comes to guidance for the member states on how their Plans should integrate gender concerns, there is just a vague instruction to take them into account ‘where relevant and when applicable’.

This misses the whole point of gender mainstreaming, which is that gender concerns are always relevant and applicable. Gender mainstreaming requires us to ask what are the potential gendered impacts of any planned action – or inaction. This question is always relevant. In a society structured around hierarchical gender relations, policies will always have unequal gendered impact and all policy is gendered. If we do not look for the gendered impact of proposed climate strategies, it will remain hidden. Gender Impact Assessments are therefore essential, but are rarely conducted.

The Smart and Sustainable Mobility Strategy (SSMS), which provides the framework for EU transport policies mentions gender only once. It says that ‘the Commission will apply gender mainstreaming to its transport-related policy initiatives’. This, of course, is promising, but the explicit actions and measures that follow are limited to increasing the number of women working in the transport sector. The rest of the strategy focuses largely on greening the existing transport infrastructure, rather than shifting to more sustainable modes of transport – which a Gender Impact Assessment would undoubtedly suggest, given the gendered differences in transport usage, for example, the differences between public and active transport and private car use.

Gender mainstreaming, which was introduced following the Fourth UN Conference in Beijing in 1995 and is now 30 years old, was intended to illuminate and correct this problem, but has clearly not yet succeeded.

Climate mainstreaming

Recently, the term ‘climate mainstreaming’ has become more common in EU policy documents. The EU Adaptation Strategy (2021), for example, highlights the importance of mainstreaming climate adaptation and climate resilience into EU policies and the EU budget, arguing that the response to climate change must be systemic. This recognises that there is no point having narrowly defined climate action if its benefits are undermined by unchanged practices in sectors such as industry, agriculture, transport and energy. Instead, it has to be integrated into all sectors.

While climate mainstreaming takes its place in EU policy documents and is underpinned by a 30% spending target in the long-term budget, gender mainstreaming is often relegated to a separate section, a footnote, or a single overarching statement which is not followed up in any of the concrete measures or guidance for implementation. The 30% spending target for climate action in the current EU budget is in contrast to the absence of a spending target for gender equality. The European Court of Auditors found that gender is the crosscutting priority least well integrated into the EU’s spending programmes as well as in its impact assessments.

So, what do we do?

The adoption of climate mainstreaming and the recognition that it needs to be embraced by decision makers in all policy sectors and underpinned by resources shows that a systemic approach to addressing crosscutting issues remains relevant. Climate mainstreaming’s ascendancy is striking at a time when gender mainstreaming is often ignored, perceived as a bureaucratic tick-box exercise, or contained in a separate overarching statement with no concrete measures. I argue that climate mainstreaming and gender mainstreaming are both essential if we are to advance towards a just and sustainable future and they need to be pursued in an integrated fashion, so that all policy is both climate and gender mainstreamed.

In conclusion, we have not finished with gender mainstreaming. It may have become a box-ticking exercise for some, but its radical transformative potential persists, and it should not be abandoned. There are three steps that will keep us moving  in the right direction:

Firstly, gender must be mainstreamed throughout all policy, even in areas that appear to be gender neutral. This includes climate change, but also energy, transport, trade and agriculture.

Secondly, gender mainstreaming must take place at all stages of the policy process, from issue definition through policy formulation, to implementation and evaluation. Gender Impact Assessments are a crucial part of this, as are implementation and monitoring, which are often neglected.

Finally, gender must be mainstreamed in an intersectional way. This means recognising that gender inequality intersects with other structural inequalities, including region, age, ethnicity and disability.