At the Pacific Islands Forum this week the UN Secretary General stated that the Pacific needs to be provided with a bigger voice when it comes to climate change.
But who has that voice and who is not listened to? New University of Canberra/ACIAR funded research is addressing diverse gender inclusivity in the design and implementation of climate programs in the Pacific. It is adopting an intersectional and diverse approach to gender (consistent with the IPCC goal 3.4) to capture the voices of groups who report feeling marginalised in these programs and discussions.
The importance of gender equality and inclusion to achieve better and more equitable outcomes in climate program is increasingly being reflected in global, regional and domestic institutional climate statements. For example, a 2023 report by Recourse, BRICS Feminist Watch and CLEAN (Coastal Livelihood and Environmental Action Network) emphasised that principles of climate justice and rights are crucial in giving effect to the Paris Agreement on climate change:
Given the limited scale of public investment resources for sustainable development and climate finance, it is a matter of efficiency, effectiveness and equity that it needs to set the highest bar with respect to good governance; applying, safeguarding and advancing environmental and social standards; and actively promoting social inclusion and poverty reduction, gender-responsiveness and human rights.
Regionally, the Framework for Resilient Development in the Pacific also calls for an integrated approach to gender considerations. And, in Australia, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Penny Wong, has stated Australia’s international development strategy has a “commitment to gender equality and climate action will be at the heart of the development program” and that “new targets will ensure Australian development assistance tackles climate impacts and improves the lives of women and girls”.
The growing policy and research activity in the gender and climate space acknowledges that women, men and children experience climate impacts differently depending on how they sustain their livelihoods and the roles they play in their community.
To be effective, and to avoid entrenching or exacerbating existing inequalities, climate programs must accommodate these differences. There is however a need for more diverse inclusion, as gender is still being used in much of the literature and development programming without considering the intersection of other identities such as diverse sexuality, disability, age etc.
Accordingly, the Commission on the Status of Women 2022 Outcome Statement on achieving gender equality in the context of climate change called on climate adaption programs to be more inclusive – especially of people living with a disability, LGBTQ+ groups and other marginalised voices who are impacted but whose diverse needs are not taken into account in the design and delivery of climate adaptation programs.
On top of the importance of a diverse and gender inclusive approach to climate adaptation programs, we need
The Hon Lynda Tabuya. Picture: Stemoc, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
insight into what works ‘on the ground’ for better and more equitable and inclusive outcomes. A ‘one size-fits-all approach’ will not work. Climate adaption programs that seek to be diverse and gender inclusive need to be nuanced and context specific. Crucially, they will need to be informed and shaped by local communities developing local solutions that meet a diverse range of needs and circumstances.
The 2024 Pacific Islands Forum Women Leaders meeting last month focused on a fuller diversity of gender responsive climate change. The Fiji Minister for Women the Hon Lynda Tabuya noted that “achieving gender equality and gender-responsive climate resilience requires understanding of the well-being of women and girls ‘in all their diversity’.
The Minister emphasised that understanding requires more than an afterthought, a paragraph in a speech or a report. The two-year University of Canberra/ACIAR elicitation of Pasifika perspectives on gender and climate change will take the time to support the design and implementation of more inclusive climate programs and broader development programs that are increasingly including a climate change element, with an emphasis on intersectional and locally-led approaches, indigenous research methodologies such as talanoa and tok story and deep listening.
Dr Jane Alver is a Senior Research Fellow in the Faculty of Business Government and Law at the University of Canberra. Her research area is civil society activism for gender equality.
