Climate Justice: Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment

Jul 8, 2021 | ABA;IDLO
Online
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The escalating risks of climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic have brought to the forefront the need for urgent action to deliver smart, accessible, and sustainable solutions that will reduce societal inequalities and close climate justice gaps. Addressing these gaps is particularly urgent for women and girls because they are often among those most disproportionately affected by effects of climate change. Discriminatory gender norms, unequal access to land and other resources, and the pervasiveness of gender-based violence mean that women and girls are more at risk. Although women and girls are often at the forefront of movements demanding climate justice, they continue to have limited participation in climate-related decision-making processes.

The human rights of women and girls must be at the center of climate action. Governments, women’s organizations, civil society organizations, and international actors, among others, can be proactive in creating enabling frameworks to promote women’s environmental rights, enhance access to justice for women, enable inclusive economic development and provide enhanced opportunities for women’s participation and leadership in decision-making. The rule of law offers an important tool in building this enabling environment and in ensuring that women and girls, in all their diversity, are not left behind in the development and implementation of sustainable climate solutions.

This panel of rule-of-law, gender and climate-justice champions will provide a global overview of innovative approaches for expanding gender integration into national and local climate action. Panelists will share country experiences, case studies, and best practices for embedding gender perspectives in national climate policies, plans, strategies, and programs. They will also provide examples of how stakeholders have developed and implemented human rights- and rule of law-based approaches to empower women, particularly marginalized and vulnerable women, to claim their rights and participate in sustainable development. The panelists will also discuss considerations related to gender data and analysis, institutional capacity building, and multistakeholder participation in implementation.

Who: ABA; IDLO

Where: Online

When: 8 July 2021    Time: 12:00 PM EDT