“Empowering Women for a Renewable Future: Why Gender Equality is Essential for Australia’s Climate Transition”
Australia needs to rapidly transition to a renewable economy to adequately respond to the profound challenge posed by climate change. But if women’s perspectives and experiences are not part of shaping our future, we can’t ensure a renewable transition that is fast, fair, and effective.
Decision-makers in the public sector need to apply both a gender and a climate lens to all policy development to ensure that it responds to the gendered nature of climate and environmental impacts and ensures that solutions benefit all genders. This particularly applies to key gender policies like the national gender equality strategy and to centrepiece renewable energy initiatives like the Net Zero Plan and the Future Made in Australia agenda.
At present, climate and environmental issues are only occasionally mentioned in domestic gender policies, and gender issues are almost never referenced in climate and environmental policies.
This policy omission is presumably based upon an assumption that climate and environmental issues impact all Australians equally. But research demonstrates that the same factors that contribute to social disadvantage also increase climate vulnerability. This means that climate change and biodiversity loss disproportionately impact those who are marginalized due to gender, sexuality, disability, cultural background, socio-economic background, and other intersectional factors.
Globally, women are 14 times more likely to die in a disaster and represent 80% of people displaced through climate change. This vulnerability does not just apply to developing countries in the global south but extends to industrialized countries like Australia too.
The health and safety of Australian women are significantly compromised by climate change. Pregnant and breastfeeding women are more vulnerable to disasters, particularly bushfires, and there is evidence that older women are most at risk during extreme heat events.
Time and again, research has shown that gender-based violence increases during and after crises, from health crises like pandemics to environmental disasters like drought and fire.
Women are more affected by issues like climate change, biodiversity loss, desertification, and pollution because of the unequal power relations caused by patriarchy, colonialism, racism, capitalism, and neoliberalism. These structural and systemic factors mean that women are more likely to be constrained by socio-cultural norms and disadvantaged by socio-economic circumstances.
Gendered vulnerability to climate and environmental issues is well established in international policies, through recognition in instruments like the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, and the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. The work of numerous international agencies is predicated on widespread recognition of gender-differentiated impacts, including UN agencies like the United Nations Development Programme, government organizations like the United States Agency for International Development, and non-governmental organizations such as ActionAid, The Nature Conservancy, and Oxfam.
Australia’s own overseas aid and development funding managed by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) is governed by a Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Strategy, with a new International Gender Equality Strategy currently being developed.
DFAT’s new International Development Strategy establishes targets for at least half of all bilateral and regional investments worth more than $3 million to have a climate change objective and for at least 80% of investments to have a gender-equality objective.
But this recognition is much less comprehensive when we turn our gaze inwards, where domestic policy implementation has been fragmented and lacking force. The National Health and Climate Strategy recognizes that women and children are disproportionately affected by climate health impacts, with this vulnerability increasing for older people, people with disabilities, First Nations people, culturally and linguistically diverse communities, people experiencing socio-economic disadvantage, and people living in rural and remote areas. By contrast, the National Women’s Health Strategy 2020-2030 lists maternal health, mental health, and gender-based violence as priorities but without discussion of how climate change exacerbates these challenges.
There is a brief mention in the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022-2032 and the associated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Action Plan 2023-2025 that crises increase rates of gender-based violence. But this is not positioned to evidence that disasters and therefore violence are worsening in an era of climate crisis, nor the need for a commensurate policy response to tackle this climate-fueled challenge.
Some of the risks but also opportunities at the intersection of gender and climate have been acknowledged in relation to jobs, skills, and economic development. Working Future: The Australian Government’s White Paper on Jobs and Opportunities, explains that Australia needs to rapidly transition towards a net zero economy to respond to the challenge of climate change, which means that barriers to gender equality in key industries like clean energy must be addressed.
The Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce’s final report
A 10-year-plan to Unleash the Full Capacity and Contribution of Women to the Australian Economy 2023-2033 similarly recognizes that we need women’s equal participation in industries such as clean energy and climate-positive industries, as well as to increase women’s access to seed funding and capital for new business and technology innovations.
Working for Women, the national gender equality strategy released in 2024, recognizes that women are disproportionately impacted by ill health, death, and gender-based violence due to climate change, and stresses the importance of diverse leadership in responding to these issues. This is a welcome first step. However, recognition of the scale of our climate and environmental challenges and their gendered impacts are not embedded throughout the strategy, and the next steps will need to consider policy and investment responses to address such challenges.
The Wiyi Yani U Thangani Report details the significant role of Country in the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and girls as a source of identity, strength, and healing. It documents their frustration at their limited political and economic power to address climate impacts on traditional lands, recommending that Australian governments recognize the role of First Nations women in caring for Country and developing climate policies.
While climate and environmental issues are sometimes cited in gender-related Australian policies, gender issues are rarely mentioned in climate and environmental policies. The National Climate Resilience and Adaptation Strategy 2021-2025 only mention gender in supporting community resilience in partner countries, implying that gendered vulnerability to climate change is not an issue in the Australian context. The strategy explains that adaptation must recognize differentiated vulnerability without exploring how women and gender-diverse people experience climate impacts.
Australia’s Strategy for Nature 2019-2030, which governs Australian biodiversity conservation, does not mention gender and only briefly recognizes that all Australians, including women, have an important role to play in caring for nature.
Despite these omissions, there is an exciting opportunity in the present moment to address the gendered implications of climate change.
The federal government has recently made major policy announcements relating to Australia’s transition towards a renewable economy: the Net Zero Plan and the Future Made in Australia agenda.
We know that the clean energy industry is vital to Australia’s economic transformation. But the industry faces workforce shortages and urgent time pressures. Gender diversity is an essential part of the answer. Currently, women only represent around 35% of the clean energy sector, and most are not in trade or STEM-qualified roles such as engineers or electricians. Building a more gender-diverse clean energy workforce can ensure more effective climate change mitigation and more equitable economic gains.
The evidence is clear that when more women are around the decision-making table, environmental outcomes are more successful and sustainable. More women in politics and policymaking lead to stronger environmental policies and legislation. More women in industry and business results in lower carbon emissions, higher environmental, social, and governance performance, and fewer environmental lawsuits. Yet gender parity is still far from a reality in many industries and sectors.
A new report from Women’s Environmental Leadership Australia analyzes the evidence about gender, climate, and environmental issues, explaining why impacts are gendered and why gender-diverse leadership and intersectional perspectives are critical to solving these challenges.
A set of key recommendations focuses on leadership and decision-making; policy-making; finance and investment; the gendered nature of disasters; international commitments; diverse voices and sectors; and a just, equitable, clean, and caring economy.
Ultimately, a gender lens needs to be embedded into all our climate and environmental policy-making, and we need to include a climate and environmental lens on all gender policies. This will mean Australia no longer lags behind best practices on the world stage.
There is a key opportunity amidst the significant resources being devoted to our renewable energy transition, to ensure that these major policies don’t just represent more ‘jobs for the boys’.