With the Belém Gender Action Plan adopted, stakeholders see both progress and shortcomings: '[Its] strength … depends on how we choose to carry it forward'

After reportedly missing an initial deadline for agreement, a new Gender Action Plan has been adopted at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Belém, Brazil — often called the "gateway to the Amazon." The adoption was announced on November 22, as the climate summit commonly known as COP30 came to a close.

Intended to update the 2017 strategy for gender-responsive climate action, U.N. Women had called for a revision this year that would be "transformative, well-funded, and accountable," guiding action over the next nine years, from 2026 to 2034. Others issued similar calls.

For example, the Fiji Times reported that Laingane Italeli Talia, attorney general of the island nation of Tuvalu, emphasized at a COP30 event — "Towards a people-centered climate action: recognising the role of women and girls of African descent" —  that the revised GAP should represent a strengthened, not weakened, framework.

Announcing the adoption of the Belém GAP, U.N. Women said in a press release: "The decision introduces important elements on health, violence against women and girls and protection mechanisms for women environmental defenders, care work, decent work and quality jobs, and socially just transitions. It includes the recognition of the intersectional factors that shape the realities of women with disabilities, Indigenous women, women from rural and remote communities, and women and girls of African descent."

Earlier roadblocks to consensus on the updated GAP appeared to be at least partly related to disagreements about the definition of the word "gender," with some countries seemingly wanting to retreat from trans- and nonbinary-inclusive language dating back to at least 2011 in favor of terms like "biological sex." Think tank ODI Global reported that some countries not only argued for binary language but also "sought to undermine the multilateral system by demanding footnotes with nation-specific definitions of gender in texts."

The release from U.N. Women issued over the weekend did not seem to suggest specific protections for trans and nonbinary people had been included in the new GAP, however, the group did continue to underscore its commitments to "women and girls in all their diversity."

The Women and Gender Constituency — a stakeholder group officially recognized by the UNFCCC — celebrated the plan's adoption and "[welcomed] key outcomes" but also registered some disappointments with the revised GAP in a press release on the matter.

"While an intersectional lens is retained, it appears only as a diluted reference to 'multidimensional factors' across activities, which is a missed opportunity to explicitly recognize gender-diverse people," the WGC said in its release.

The WGC did spotlight several points of progress made in the plan, which it indicated includes 27 activities. In addition to those similarly celebrated by U.N. Women, the WGC highlighted that "gender and age disaggregated data are integrated throughout the framework." 

Meanwhile, numerous stakeholders, including the WGC, have noted a lack of clarity around plans to fund the implementation of the new GAP. In an email to Climate, Gendered, Claudia Rubio Giraldo, policy and programs coordinator at Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), wrote, "The GAP is a political commitment, but it requires finance for this will to be embodied." She continued, "Without adequate finance, the leading and contributing actors of the GAP cannot act effectively."

Margareta Koltai, policy advisor at Act Church of Sweden, told the Indian outlet The News Minute, "This meeting at COP 30 plays a key role in guiding how large climate finance, managed by the World Bank and regional development banks, will be allocated. If these decisions are not made here, the next step is to take them directly to the banks and hold them accountable."

Some are indeed concerned that the plan lacks sufficient mechanisms for holding countries to account for gender-responsive climate action. "Ultimately, the strength of this document depends on how we choose to carry it forward," the WGC noted in its release.

The announcement of the GAP's finalization came as major outlets reported that the formal agreement coming out of COP30 was "watered-down," "[fell] short," and contained "no direct reference to the fossil fuels that are heating up the planet." Some have suggested that the Trump administration's declining to send a delegation to the summit contributed to an outcome of compromise surrounding the topic of curbing carbon emissions by more fully transitioning to cleaner, more renewable energy sources — the prime concern of many environmental advocates eager to reduce planet-heating pollution.

Indeed, Rubio Giraldo told Climate, Gendered, "We cannot have an effective GAP while perpetuating fossil fuel extraction."

She went on to note: "Our economies, as well as being built on fossil fuels, are also built on extraction of women’s unpaid labour, which currently acts as the largest hidden subsidy to existing economies on earth. If we green our economies and societies without dismantling the patriarchal systems that underpin them, we will just move from one extractive system to another, one economy built on the backs of women and the most marginalized to another."

And some from historically marginalized communities say their voices and priorities are still not being sufficiently heard, even at venues like COP30. 

In Belém, Indigenous communities powered demonstrations to underscore the emergencies unfolding in their homes and habitats. In Kaduna, Nigeria, Olanike Olugboji-Daramola, founder of Women Initiative for Sustainable Environment, told the Peoples Gazette that the climate summit had been "hijacked by big players and big corporations" and that the rural women deeply impacted by rising temperatures and environmental crises should be able to speak for themselves on such platforms — pointing, perhaps, to a notable problem as well as an opportunity to continue to improve representation at future convenings.


One goal at Climate, Gendered is to bring an undeniable 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 nonbinary 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. 

This work cannot be done alone or in silos. We welcome with gratitude your feedback and observations on this topic: Please feel encouraged to share one way you noticed this week that climate and gender connect — and share CG with a friend.