Climate adaptation without gender inclusion is not an option. Here’s why
If the world truly wants to help people adapt to climate change, then including women cannot be treated as optional. It needs to be the starting point for every plan and every policy.
There is no shortage of evidence. Studies demonstrate that when women and girls, in all their diversity, play an active role in adapting to climate change, the whole of society benefits. By putting gender at the centre, adaptation becomes stronger and more sustainable.
COP30 was meant to be the moment this thinking became the norm. Billed as “the COP of Adaptation”, it delivered far too little. Once again, decisions were made with little consideration for the people who are already suffering the worst impacts of the climate crisis. People who need support to safeguard homes, harvests and livelihoods are still being denied the funding, resources and actions that would make a real difference.
We know what needs to be done. The UN Environmental Programme’s annual adaptation gap report starkly lays out the money and measures needed that could make a difference. What is lacking is political will. Willingness to respond to people facing destruction, death, and loss of livelihoods because they can’t access the resources they need. And willingness to recognise that adaptation fails without women because it ignores half the knowledge and leadership societies rely on.
Women are at the centre of decisions about land, food, water, care and community organising, whether on farms and markets, in local government, cooperatives or social movements. When their rights, voices and priorities are missing from plans, policies address only part of the risk and opportunities, funding bypasses the people who could use it best, and solutions do not match how communities actually adapt.
Gender-responsive approaches matter because they help everyone adapt.
What is gender-responsive adaptation and why it isn’t optional?
Words carry power. They shape the way we think and act. Calling something “gender-sensitive” can become symbolic rather than meaningful. “Gender-responsive” however, demands action. It means:
- Integrating gender as a priority across planning, budgeting, implementation, and monitoring.
- Recognising how unequal access to land, income, technology, mobility, and decision-making power shapes people’s ability to adapt.
- Acknowledging who grows the food, who collects the water, who rebuilds homes after disasters, and who gets left behind.
Gender-responsive adaptation isn’t about putting women on a pedestal or treating them as an add-on. It is about making climate policy work, because without women, climate action is not effective. In turn, climate policy must yield equitable benefits and advance gender equality, rather than deepen existing gaps.
Yet, at COP30, we were once again met with pushback against “gender-responsive” adaptation. Weaker language, such as “gender-sensitive”, was preferred by some, but this unambitious language allows governments to sidestep tangible commitments to equity and justice.
What COP30 delivered on gender and adaptation, and where it failed
Despite its failure to deliver concrete, immediate next steps on the finance needed for adaptation, there is at least a chink of light at the end of the tunnel. A new Gender Action Plan was adopted by countries, which will help mainstream gender across national plans and global policies.
Let’s have a closer look at what the climate COP achieved this year across its adaptation-focused negotiation tracks and what remains lacking for gender and adaptation:
The Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA): counting what matters
The GGA is a set of global metrics that countries can report on. These metrics will help the world better understand which practical adaptation measures are happening on the ground and whether national policy environments support adaptation across sectors.
At COP30, 59 indicators were adopted for countries to report on. This includes a gender-specific indicator, which is an important win. For the first time, we will be able to understand whether countries’ policies are gender-responsive and account for everyone’s adaptation needs and priorities.
National Adaptation Plans (NAPs): planning without half of the population?
NAPs are key for shaping a country’s adaptation priorities over a period of five years. They also show where funding and investment for adaptation are most needed. This year’s decision weakens gender commitments in National Adaptation Plans, reducing them to a conditional afterthought—‘only when applicable’—instead of a core priority. The burden will now fall on civil society networks to ensure gender doesn’t become an afterthought in national adaptation policy.
Adaptation finance: the biggest failure of COP30
The Adaptation Fund is a positive outlier in the integration of gender policies and plans in international climate finance. But only around $135 million was pledged to the Adaptation Fund─less than half of the $300 million goal. Without predictable, grant-based, and non-debt inducing finance from developed countries, even the best adaptation plans and policies will fail to reach the communities that need them the most.
What needs to happen next
Despite the weight international negotiations hold, real adaptation happens in homes, fields, and coastal villages. And the people living through the urgency of the climate crisis know what works. This is why community-led, gender-just approaches have repeatedly proven to reduce climate risk and help people become more resilient.
The renewed Gender Action Plan is supposed to strengthen gender across all UNFCCC processes, governments must:
- Make gender-responsive adaptation non-negotiable
- Invest in locally led solutions that prioritise community leadership and women’s intergenerational knowledge
- Ensure finance reaches frontline communities without creating new debt
- Use the Global Goal on Adaptation indicators to create transparency and accountability in adaptation measures
The Women’s Environment and Development Organization and Practical Action work closely with communities using rights-based and gender just approaches in ways that reflect their needs and priorities.
The real test now is whether countries and their partners will embed gender responsive adaptation into National Adaptation Plans and the Global Goal on Adaptation—not as a box ticking exercise, but as a driving force for fair and effective climate action. We can help them do that.
Implementing partners need to be seen as important stakeholders throughout every stage of the adaptation process (planning, policy, implementation, and monitoring, evaluation and learning).
We do not speak for the communities we work with, but we are here to ensure their knowledge and experiences inform the policies that are designed in their name, from the local to the global stage.
For COP decisions to matter, they must lead to action on the ground
Adaptation can no longer sit in the slow lane of climate action, just as gender can no longer be sidelined if efforts are to deliver the support people need.
To move forward, governments, donor countries and climate funds, implementing organisations and movements, as well as UNFCCC bodies, all have a role to play. If these actors do not move, we will keep repeating the same debates at every COP while climate risks grow. If they do, adaptation can finally match the courage and creativity that communities are already showing.
From now on, every global decision and national action needs to be intentionally gender-responsive. Countries now have a narrow window to turn commitments into real support for the people already facing climate loss and damage.
Why climate adaptation fails without women is no mystery. The question now is who is willing to act on what we already know.
We look forward to supporting and collaborating with partners across the spectrum to ensure adaptation will take its long-overdue lead role on the global stage. And the only way to get there is to shape adaptation by the people whose lives quite literally depend on it.
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