Mobilizing knowledge on gender, equity, and justice in climate change adaptation

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Summary

The brief from the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) summarizes the key messages on gender, equity, and justice derived from the research included in Working Group (WG) II of the Sixth Assessment Report. It highlights that women, marginalized communities, and indigenous populations are disproportionately affected by climate change. The brief emphasizes the need for gender-responsive and socially inclusive adaptation strategies and identifies barriers to achieving equity in climate adaptation efforts.

Introduction

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) brings together thousands of experts, divided into different Working Groups, to periodically review relevant scientific literature and produce the most comprehensive state-of-the-knowledge reports on climate change. Working Group II (WG II) assesses the impacts, adaptation, and vulnerabilities related to climate change, and its contribution to the most recently completed sixth assessment cycle was published in 2022. Compared to previous cycles, the WG II contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report (WG II report) includes more references to gender, equity, and justice, reflecting the importance of incorporating these considerations in climate change adaptation planning and action.

Effective adaptation planning and action in climate change requires a whole-of-society approach, implicating a broad range of actors, including governments, civil society organizations, private sector actors, community organizations, service providers, and individual citizens. These actors need the best available evidence to integrate considerations of gender, equity, and justice into their adaptation efforts, but the length and the technical style of the IPCC reports may present barriers to accessing the critical knowledge they contain. This brief is a summary of key findings from this report with respect to gender, equity, and justice in climate change adaptation. It uses the help of a companion comic – A Story of Gender, Equity, and Justice in Climate Change Adaptation to illustrate and explain the messages, putting them in the context of their experiences living and working in different parts of Africa.

Understanding Adaptation to Climate Change

The IPCC uses several foundational concepts for understanding climate change impacts, their effects on people, and adaptation. The concepts of climate risk, vulnerability, and adaptation are core to the IPCC’s and our collective understanding of climate change impacts and adaptation.

Climate Risk: Climate risks are the result of interactions of climate-related hazards with the exposure and vulnerability of human or ecological systems. These interactions are dynamic, meaning that climate risks change over time and space, and there are uncertainties around all three components.

Vulnerability: Vulnerability is defined as “the propensity or predisposition to be adversely affected. Vulnerability encompasses a variety of concepts and elements, including sensitivity or susceptibility to harm and lack of capacity to cope and adapt” (IPCC, 2022, p. 2927).

Adaptation: Adaptation to climate change in human systems is “the process of adjustment to actual or expected climate and its effects, in order to moderate harm or exploit beneficial opportunities” (IPCC, 2022, p. 2898).

Key Messages on gender, equity & justice in climate change adaptation

The key messages have been grouped into three broad themes: differential vulnerability to climate change, the benefits of gender responsive and socially inclusive adaptation, and promising approaches.

How does the IPCC explain who is most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change?

Key Message 1: Women, children, people living with disabilities, the elderly, people living in poverty, Indigenous Peoples, and people who face discrimination because of their race, ethnicity, caste, sexuality, gender identity, or other factors are more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

Key Message 2: The historical and ongoing exclusion and marginalization of people based on their gender, race, wealth, disabilities, social status, or other socio-economic characteristics influences their vulnerability to the impacts of climate change.

Key Message 3: The impacts of climate change will be felt in many ways and in many aspects of our society, with a number of these impacts being disproportionately felt by vulnerable groups.

Key Message 4: Vulnerability to climate change, inequality, and the processes of marginalization are closely related, and these processes interact with and compound one another.

Why do we need to build gender, equity, and justice considerations into adaptation?

Key Message 5: When adaptation planning and action include considerations of gender, equity, and justice, adaptation efforts are strengthened, and there is greater potential to produce more successful, cost-effective, and just plans and outcomes.

Key Message 6: When adaptation planning and action does not include considerations of gender, equity, and justice, there is a greater potential for adaptation efforts to have maladaptive outcomes.

Key Message 7: Building considerations of gender, equity, and justice into adaptation planning also enables the production of numerous co-benefits.

Why do we consider gender, equity, and justice in adaptation planning?

Key Message 8: More inclusive participation, through the inclusion of diverse voices and the empowerment of vulnerable populations in decision-making and planning processes, is one strategy for incorporating considerations of gender, equity, and justice into adaptation.

Key Message 9: Grounding adaptation planning and action in multiple knowledge types, including Indigenous and local knowledge, allows for the recognition of diverse perspectives and ultimately strengthens the outcomes of the process.

Key Message 10: Community-based adaptation (CbA), human rights-based approaches (HRBA), and approaches to adaptation that consider gender-related dimensions or are equity-based can address adaptation while also contributing to gender-, equity-, and justice-related outcomes.

Key Message 11: Broadening the adaptation solution space beyond technocratic approaches to include actions aimed at the underlying causes of vulnerability—such as reducing poverty, enhancing social safety nets, housing, and implementing health initiatives— can increase vulnerable groups’ resilience to the impacts of climate change.

Suggested citation

Hunter, C. Dazé, A. (2024) Mobilizing knowledge on gender, equity, and justice in climate change adaptation. IISD Brief