Hundreds of thousands of residents have been impacted by rotating 48-hour shutoffs, with some having waited hours in line to fill up on water amid severe drought conditions affecting large swaths of the U.S. territory.
Since July, severe floods in Assam, India, have killed 100 people and displaced more than 700,000, with some 49,00 people continuing to shelter in relief camps. Amid recent calls for health care and privacy for women and girls, authorities in Assam have issued an advisory warning of increased risks of trafficking and exploitation of children who have become separated from their families during the disaster.
According to the Assam Tribune, the advisory calls for coordinated action among humanitarian workers, volunteers, the media, and the public to protect children's safety and privacy, including by avoiding the sharing of personal details, images, or locations.
This month marks five years since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan. In a brief examining the "half a decade of escalating restrictions" imposed by the group on Afghan women and girls, U.N. Women noted that 52 percent of women interviewed said they left home twice a month or less, compared with 96 percent of men, who said they leave their homes daily.
In addition to related restrictions on school attendance and declines in mental health, conditions that limit movement outside the home — such as the requirement of a male relative's permission to leave or concerns over safety — could create unique dangers for women and girls living in the region's mud-built structures.
Numerous such homes have collapsed amid heavy rains in recent years, resulting in injuries and death. The tragedies demonstrate the need for more resilient housing across communities and point to how social oppression and extreme weather multiply risks for marginalized people — as well as how gender equity may help to combat those risks.
Gender equity remains an aim for many in the country. According to U.N. Women, "When asked in 2025 to identify their top three goals for the future, 39% of women included equal rights for women and girls — making equality the most commonly selected aspiration."
Gov. Jenniffer González-Colón declared a state of emergency in late July due to critically low water supplies on the island of Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory. According to Yale Climate Connections, record drought affecting huge swaths of the island has been exacerbated by "high temperatures, lack of dredging sedimentation in reservoirs, deteriorating infrastructure, and mismanagement," reminding many residents of a similar crisis in 2015.
Since then, Yale noted, sedimentation worsened due to the effects of 2017's Hurricane Maria. Now, hundreds of thousands of residents have reportedly been impacted by a rotating 48-hour shutoff schedule, with some having waited hours in line to fill up on water. Earlier this week, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said it was providing water-filled trailers to support access.
Water management and collection responsibilities have often been deeply gendered in contexts around the world, and household needs — such as cooking, washing, menstrual health, and other personal care — can become additionally fraught during shortages.
Some health experts have also warned that the water storage needed to cope with this shortage could increase the risk of gastrointestinal, dengue, and Zika infections if water is not stored in safely sealed containers.
The mosquitoes that can transmit dengue fever and Zika virus breed in standing water. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "Zika virus infection during pregnancy can cause birth defects of the brain or eye."
This week, the U.N. Population Fund — or UNFPA — donated reproductive health and midwifery kits to facilities in six parishes across Jamaica that were seriously impacted by Hurricane Melissa, according to the country's information service. The storm made landfall on the island nation almost a year ago.
While the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted a below-normal Atlantic hurricane season for 2026, tied to the El Niño weather phenomenon, scientists generally agree that human-caused climate change has contributed to intensifying storms. Additionally, even a below-normal season can still see storms make devastating landfalls.
Harold Robinson of the UNFPA Sub-Regional Office for the Caribbean said that the kit distribution in Jamaica marked a move from emergency response to recovery and preparedness.
A study conducted by researchers at the University of Hamburg in Germany and published in Frontiers in Climate this week aimed to explore the links between university students and climate change anxiety.
The co-authors found that "students who identified as female had a significantly higher climate change anxiety compared to students who identified as male." They asserted that their work "underscores the need to consider climate-related stress" and how to address it within university settings and mental health services.
This digest was curated and reported by Gracie Leavitt. It was written and edited by Gracie Leavitt and Kirsten Krueger.
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, and LGBTQ+ communities — especially individuals 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 and environment crises and concerns that can disproportionately affect boys and men.
But there's a whole lot going on around the world, and this weekly brief isn't intended to be exhaustive but rather your chance to spend just a few moments on a handful of items — including the ideas that might make a difference.
This work cannot be done alone or in silos. We appreciate 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.
"Historically, females have been underrepresented in thermoregulation research," postdoctoral fellow Hannah Blount told CG. Her work to address knowledge gaps around sweat patterns is set to prove even more critical as temperatures rise — and could even help girls stay safe and active in sports.
CG spoke with self-identified climate refugee Margaret Reynolds about how a Maine coalition is working to save an L&D unit amid a rash of rural maternity care closures across the state and country — and amid extreme weather that can complicate travel to health centers farther and farther away.
"I think people think heart attacks, people think asthma. But they don't think about pregnant people," said Amy Padula, Acting Director of UCSF's Program on Reproductive Health & the Environment, about how pregnant people may be overlooked as one of the groups especially sensitive to wildfire smoke.
"Being a queer [or] trans activist and an environmental activist puts you in a greater sense of danger because both agendas are heavily under attack," Diego De Leon, Advocacy Chair at Out for Sustainability, told CG.
