Backlash against women's rights 'could hurt climate progress'

Thirty years ago, a landmark agreement was signed by 189 countries in China to further women's rights.

The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action was to lay the foundations and provide a key global policy document on gender equality. Fast-forward to today, as countries around the globe roll out initiatives to mark International Women's Day, and new data released by the UN shows that women’s and girl’s rights face unprecedented growing threats worldwide.

UN Women’s latest report, Women's Rights in Review 30 Years After Beijing, released on Thursday, says that in 2024 nearly a quarter of goverments worldwide reported a backlash on women’s rights, in countries including Spain, Canada, the Philippines, Brazil, Lebanon, Australia, Mongolia and Zimbabwe.

“It is not a new phenomenon,” UN Women’s policy and programme director Sarah Hendriks said at a news conference. “What is new is that it’s gaining in greater speed and scale and velocity,” especially in very patriarchal and traditional nations where men play a dominant role."

Despite important progress, the UN highlights that only 87 countries have ever been led by a woman, and a woman or girl is killed every 10 minutes by a partner or member of her own family.

“Globally, women’s human rights are under attack." said Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary General. "Instead of mainstreaming equal rights, we’re seeing the mainstreaming of misogyny."

From the boardroom to the newsroom, women are still disproportionately represented. For example, women account for just 10 per cent of Fortune 500 companies, and roughly 24 per cent of senior newsroom editorial roles are held by women.

Why does gender representation matter in the climate sector?

When it comes to the climate crisis, according to the UN, it is estimated that four out of five people displaced by storms and extreme weather events associated with climate change are women and girls. The UN estimates that by 2050, about 158 million more women and girls will be pushed into poverty.

On the gender gap special of the Women in Climate podcast, a collaboration between The National and GIB Asset Management, Kathy Baughman McLeod, chief executive of Climate Resilience for All, said that women not only face gender bias when it comes to dealing with the effects of climate change, but are also placed at a disadvantage due to cultural gender stereotypes.

For example, Ms Baughman McLeod said that during extreme heat, women she worked with in Pakistan could not escape to sleep in cooler areas saying "the women are not allowed to sleep outside. They have to sleep inside because they're not to be seen. But the men and the boys can sleep on the outside where the breeze is".

To help bridge the gap between gender, climate, and building change, Climate Resilience for All launched an insurance programme last year to support women for lost income during heat in India. Experts say women should be better represented given the role they play in sectors such as food production and the resilience they show by taking on unpaid household chores and care work. In fact, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, in developing countries, women produce up to 80 per cent of food.

"The issues remain around how do we unlock the challenges that preventing women from taking more action on climate," Jessica Robinson, partner at Solve Solutions, a UAE female-founded sustainability advisory firm, told The National. She says that the issue lies with education and access. Still, experts say a major barrier to progress this year has been the new policy stance on diversity and inclusion in the US.

US President Donald Trump, in his address to Congress on Tuesday, declared an end to the "tyranny of so-called Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies" across the public and private sector, stating that the country will be "woke no longer." Ms Robinson called the move "woeful".

However, Naomi Kerbel, host of Women in Climate and director of communications at SEC Newgate UK, said the wider push on diversity and inclusion, as well as sustainability, from the US opens an opportunity for women in leadership "who can really navigate change with resilience".

The UN estimates that it could take another 300 years for full gender equality to be reached. However, Ms Kerbel highlights that we only have 25 years until 2050, the year seen as a major marker for international climate deadlines.

"We've already surpassed one and a half degrees of [global] warming in 2024 so it's really imperative that we focus on that, and I think the women are the solution, because we can solve these issues in tandem," said Ms Kerbel.