"Immediate actions must include data collection and support for survivors, which should encompass mental health, medical, and legal services to ensure they receive justice," nonprofit leader Carine Jocelyn told CG about addressing gendered violence at the nexus of armed unrest, poverty, and climate.
There's a whole lot going on around the world: This weekly brief from Climate, Gendered isn't intended to be exhaustive but rather your chance to spend just a few moments on a handful of items with the potential to disproportionately impact over half the global population — plus, the ideas that might make a difference.
CG asked researcher Fabian Stephany about his study showing that women may be more likely to decline to use generative artificial intelligence over social, ethical, and environmental concerns. Stephany thinks these concerns, if listened to, have the power to shape the technology, ultimately improving it by demanding, for example, that energy-intensive AI operations draw increasingly on cleaner energy sources.
"Our study shows that there is a real and meaningful market segment — particularly among young, highly literate women — who value more environmentally friendly models that create less societal disruption and mental health harm," Stephany told CG.
Since CG published the piece on Tuesday, AI tech company Anthropic has pledged to address power grid strain and cover the electricity price hikes its data center operations may cause. As of February 12, it has also committed $20 million to back political candidates who support AI regulation.
An Anthropic safety researcher also quit on February 9, posting his resignation letter on social media and warning "the world is in peril." An OpenAI researcher publicly quit on February 11, sharing "deep reservations about OpenAI's strategy" in an opinion piece published by the New York Times.
In late January, 48 Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives backed a resolution introduced by Yvette Clarke of New York demanding action from Haitian authorities and global partners, including the U.S., to address sexual and gender-based violence across Haiti as well as the exclusion of women from political decision-making amid the country's layered humanitarian crisis. Last week, four Senators did the same in a bipartisan effort.
Both congressional resolutions call on "all actors engaged with the situation in Haiti to closely consult with civil society in Haiti and in particular with Haitian feminist and women's rights organizations, especially those working at the grassroots level." Carine Jocelyn, founder of the Haitian Women's Collective, told CG via email that extreme weather events have been among the factors exacerbating ongoing social, economic, and political instability, a point supported by Amnesty International and the U.N.'s Children's Fund.
"Hurricane Melissa recently caused severe impacts in the Caribbean region, devastating the daily lives of women merchants who lost their income-generating goods … . Research shows women who have their own financial means are less likely to be victims or survivors of gendered violence," said Jocelyn, who went on to note that climate-related blows to male partners' earnings can also "[increase] violence within the home."
The HWC was among the human rights groups to endorse the congressional resolutions in partnership with the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, whose senior staff attorney, Sasha Filippova, told CG that violence from armed groups, economic instability, and intensifying extreme weather events can leave women and girls vulnerable outside the home too and divert resources from "sustained efforts to dismantle structural gendered inequalities."
"Women have less resilience to natural disasters, but often bear greater familial and social care burdens in the aftermath," Filippova said. "This leaves women and girls more vulnerable to disaster displacement, which in turn exposes them to higher risk of sexual violence in unfamiliar places or at insecure displacement sites."
Both Jocelyn and Filippova underscored that effective policy, budgeting, and operational decision-making must include Haitian women in affected communities. "Immediate actions must include data collection and support for survivors, which should encompass mental health, medical, and legal services to ensure they receive justice," Jocelyn said, highlighting the importance of a transparent, community-led grievance process to address past and continuing harms.
In a report issued in early 2026, Doctors Without Borders said, "Over the years, and following the intensification of armed clashes, cases [of gender-based violence] have tripled since 2022" at one clinic in the capital of Port-au-Prince, with survivors "overwhelmingly women and girls." According to the Associated Press, "Gangs control an estimated 90% of Port-au-Prince, with many resorting to sexual abuse to instill fear." The complex crisis is well understood as a legacy of compounding factors, including colonialism, enslavement, and systemic racism.
The congressional resolutions, which Filippova called "unusually forceful," suggest that U.S. lawmakers — including the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire — take these harms seriously, with the potential to shape funding priorities and future aid efforts.
Filippova also described the recommendations set forth in the resolutions and in previous policy work as "a roadmap for transforming the crisis into an opportunity to dismantle structural inequalities in Haiti that impede the full dignity of its women and girls."
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on February 10 that President Donald Trump together with the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lee Zeldin, would be formally announcing later in the week the revocation of the agency's 2009 "endangerment finding" that the greenhouse gases that warm Earth also threaten human health and well-being.
The scientific determination — still widely supported by researchers — provided the foundation for the EPA's authority to regulate planet-warming pollution, which poses disproportionate hazards to pregnant people, communities of color, workers, and other vulnerable groups. Its announced rescission as of February 12 poses global threats, since the effects of emissions are not bound by national borders. It also promises a legal battle.
Leavitt's heads-up on Tuesday was not entirely surprising, with agency officials having submitted a new rule to the Office of Management and Budget last weekend, according to CNBC, and earlier proposing the rule for rescission last summer. The outlet called the rescission "the Trump administration’s biggest broadside yet against efforts to combat climate change" and a gift to the fossil fuel industry.
According to HEATED, however, the repeal of federal regulations could leave some oil companies without a "shield" against state-level lawsuits. Earlier this week, the newsletter posed, "A critical part of their legal defense has been that, because the federal government already regulates greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act, any claims under state law are preempted."
Meanwhile, the repeal of the finding itself is set to face legal challenges. According to Inside Climate News, "The EPA’s regulatory determinations are challenged in court more than those of any other federal agency." Climate justice advocates are expected to fight the change.
Abigail Dillen, the president of the environmental law nonprofit Earthjustice, said in a press release on the matter, "Earthjustice and our partners will see the Trump administration in court."
A historic ruling from India's Supreme Court last month recognized menstrual health management as a constitutional right. Menstrual Health Action for Impact co-founders Arundati Muralidharan and Tanya Dargan Mahajan, based in Delhi, called the ruling "momentous."
In a joint statement to CG, they celebrated the court for its comprehensive framing of the right as going beyond access to menstrual products to include access to safe bathrooms and disposal as well as sexual and reproductive health education.
But the ruling does prominently feature the topic of product access. According to the Times of India, the court "directed all states and Union Territories to provide biodegradable sanitary napkins free of cost to girl students in all schools." CG asked Muralidharan and Dargan Mahajan whether this emphasis on biodegradability was rooted in environmental concern — and whether the court's specifying only one product type for free access could limit health care choices for those who menstruate.
"India deals with over 100,000 tons of non-compostable menstrual waste each year, without the commensurate infrastructure to manage it," they said. "However, the burden of managing this waste cannot lie on girls, women, and people who menstruate. They have the right to full, free, and informed choice in the products they use, including access to unbiased information and quality products, so they can manage their menstruation as per their context."
As research and safety standards evolve to ensure that menstrual products can be reliably free of potentially harmful substances — such as lead and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — full, free, and informed choice may become even more imperative. Muralidharan and Dargan Mahajan also underscored that free choice can itself offer an environmental benefit.
"Studies have shown that when offered a basket of choices, girls and women have chosen product options that not only suit their context but are also environmentally better, including reusable products like textile-based washable pads and underwear and menstrual cups."
But these experts wouldn't argue that environmental benefits should serve as a driver or justification for full access to a range of products. Instead, as outlined in a recent paper co-authored by Dargan Mahajan, "enabling full, free, and informed choice in menstrual health can improve individual health outcomes, reduce stigma, enhance equity, and foster well-functioning markets responsive to the needs of all who menstruate."
Just as reproductive rights advocates want individuals to have access to the full range of contraceptive methods and the ability to use what works for them, many period equity advocates want students to have the same no-cost access to a basket of menstrual care options, strengthening the rights-based promise of India's landmark decision.
A new women-led campaign in The Gambia is set to combine advocacy, outreach, and health services to address the gendered impacts of extreme heat exposure. The Baobab Initiative Campaign, launched by the PF Initiative in late January, aims to provide the community with improved resources for responding to extreme heat and other climate stressors.
"As humans, we are changing our environment, and the impact is greatest on women, especially pregnant women and those working outdoors," Aisha Baldeh, executive director of PF Initiative, remarked at the launch, according to The Point, a news outlet out of The Gambia. The launch event brought together scientists, environmentalists, mental health advocates, women's rights advocates, and at least one speaker from the African Center for Democracy and Human Rights Studies.
In 2023, researchers at the Medical Research Council Unit The Gambia at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine launched a four-year study to examine how high temperatures affect maternal health and birth outcomes. According to a 2025 press release, the Gambia Heat in Pregnancy Study aims to draw a clearer picture of potential risks — including hypertension, gestational diabetes, and mental health impacts — in part through the use of wearable devices to assess individual exposure to heat. The ultimate goal is to inform localized adaptation strategies to benefit vulnerable communities.
Ana Bonell, assistant professor with the MRC Unit The Gambia at LSHTM, said in the release, "Women in The Gambia have contributed almost nothing to the global climate crisis and yet they experience the impacts almost every day." This may be especially true for those who spend prolonged periods farming outside without access to clean water or sufficient shade.
"These are simple issues: hydration, clean water containers, shade — but they can change lives," Baldeh said, per The Point, which noted that she encouraged consideration for the use of traditional clay pots as water vessels.
The PF Initiative aims to address clean water access, pregnancy complications, exhaustion, and mental health challenges linked to extreme heat exposure by better informing communities about risks and solutions. It aligns with similar efforts — from Zimbabwe to India — to train community health workers as heat educators, framing education itself as a climate adaptation strategy.
One goal at Climate, Gendered is to bring a spotlight to the reality that proliferating pollution, increasing temperatures, rising seas, extreme weather, habitat loss, and more can uniquely and disproportionately impact girls, women, trans communities, and non-binary people — especially those from communities of color, Indigenous people, disabled people, immigrants and displaced people, people experiencing poverty, and residents of low- and middle-income countries. We're also interested in the climate crises and concerns that can disproportionately affect men and boys.
This work cannot be done alone or in silos. We welcome with gratitude your feedback and observations. And please feel encouraged to share one way you noticed this week that climate and gender connect — and share CG with a friend.
"This decision is yet another example of the harmful sentiment that gender or 'social issues' are marginal or distractions," WEDO told CG about reports the treasury didn't contribute to the African Development Fund over climate, gender.
"Climate justice and social injustice are completely interlinked," said Isabel González Whitaker of Moms Clean Air Force during a virtual event focused largely on the actions of federal agents across the U.S. targeting immigrants and others.
"We stress the importance of including and recognizing the voices of women leaders as key actors within their communities," said Catalina Vargas, CARE's country director in Colombia, which borders Venezuela, in a statement to CG.
"Abortion care must be explicitly included in climate and disaster response frameworks as a core health service," researchers Tamara Fetters of Ipas and Ruvani Jayaweera of Ibis Reproductive Health told CG.
