‘To dream a new dream from the nightmare we’re in’ 1

According to the World Meteorological Organisation's United in Science report, the average global temperature for the period between 2017 and 2021 was the warmest on record. An increase in the planet's temperature brings with it extreme weather phenomena, including more frequent and intense heat waves, floods, droughts and forest fires, as well as sea level rise, and the loss of sea ice and ice sheet mass. 2021 was marked by extreme weather events that took place all over the world, including in different parts of Europe. From wildfires in Italy, Greece, Siberia and Turkey, to catastrophic floods in Belgium and Germany.

Despite its vocal detractors, climate science data has repeatedly shown that human activities are the primary cause of the climate-warming trend over the last one hundred years. Kate Marvel's simple response to those who would argue that the changes in climate we are currently witnessing are merely a continuation of climatic changes that have always taken place in the history of planetary evolution is: ‘…the existence of past climate change does not mean we are not responsible for it this time. There have always been gentle and natural deaths. This does not make murder impossible’ (2020: 33–34). In August 2021, a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that climate change is unequivocally caused by human activities, is indisputably already affecting every corner of land on the planet, as well as the sea and air, and some of that impact is not only inevitable but also irreversible.

The United Nations Secretary General - António Guterres – stated that 2021 was a critical year for climate and biodiversity. He called on UN member states to ‘declare a climate emergency in their countries’ and suggested that the 26^th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26), would be a ‘moment of truth for climate action’.

But we are not all equal in the face of the climate emergency

Sherilyn MacGregor edited the ground-breaking Routledge Handbook of Gender and Environment, which maps out an academic field of ‘sustained and systematic scholarly investigation of how gender shapes human experiences of environments and how environments are interpreted and treated through the lens of gender’ (MacGregor, 2017: 2).

Many academics in the this field are also activists, who have long argued that the climate crisis is not gender neutral, especially with regard to its impacts. According to the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN), women – particularly Indigenous women, Black women, women of colour, women from countries in the Global South and women from low-income communities – are ‘most adversely impacted by climate change and environmental degradation’. Ergo, already existing inequalities and forms of discrimination are exacerbated by climate change, and the effects of policies and measures introduced to respond to climate change replicate existing structural inequalities. Allwood argues that gendered differences can be seen in the way that climate change is produced, in attitudes towards it, as well as in decision-making around climate change (2021: 305). A 2020 study conducted by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature uncovered clear evidence to suggest that climate change is also increasing gender-based violence.

For decades, women's rights activists and organisations have been demanding that responses to the climate crisis be gender sensitive and responsive; for gender perspectives to be mainstreamed into environmental policies; for more women to be included in decision-making processes, and more space created for them to be leaders in the climate change and environmental sectors. In Europe, key organisations working in this area include Women's Environmental Network (established in the UK in 1988), pan-European network Women in Europe for a Common Future (WECF) (established in the Netherlands in 1994). Globally, Women's Environment and Development Organisation (WEDO), has played an invaluable role in advocating for women's rights to be prioritised in international policymaking in all areas – including climate and the environment – since 1991. As the concept of intersectionality travelled from the academy into activist and policy spaces, advocacy around the need for climate change action and policymaking to be more gender-focused has also increasingly taken on intersectional perspectives.

We might think of gender sensitivity, responsiveness, mainstreaming and women's participation and leadership as the ‘usual pillars’ of a gender equality or gender equity approach to addressing climate change. Gaining prominence during the 1990s, this approach characterised civil society efforts to put gender issues firmly on the agenda of international convenings that addressed both environmental issues and women's rights. ² This was absolutely necessary for countering the gender-blindness that too often characterises policymaking of all kinds and at all levels (national, regional of international); climate change being no exception.

Allwood argues that European Union (EU) climate policymaking remains gender blind because gender and climate change are addressed in siloed ways, rather than effectively integrated as priority areas (2021: 307). In Ourkiya's view, many environmental policies in Europe ‘are gender-blind and lack a deeper analysis of environmental issues as complex socio-political challenges’ (2021: 6). At the global level, COP meetings have been held annually since 1995; it took twenty-two years for the first Gender Action Plan to support gender-responsive climate action to be adopted at COP23 in 2017.

‘Man-made problems require feminist solutions’

Activists have noted a noticeable shift in the use of terminology over the last three to four years – in activist circles, among policymakers, in mainstream media - from ‘climate crisis’ to ‘climate emergency’ and from ‘climate action’ to ‘climate justice’ (see Klein, 2020). Sixty-four per cent (64%) of the 1.2 million respondents to the largest global survey of public opinion on climate change ever conducted – The People's Climat|e Vote ³ 2021 – agree that climate change is a ‘global emergency’.

Another noticeable shift in the terminology has been from references to ‘gender sensitive’ or ‘gender responsive’ to ‘feminist’ approaches to climate change.

Ecofeminism – as movement, philosophy and field of academic study – has a long history, dating back to the 1970s, after the term was coined by French feminist Françoise d'Eaubonne in 1974. Ecofeminism, however, has tended to be side lined - within mainstream feminism(s) (see Thompson and MacGregor, 2017), within earlier environmental movements and by policy makers seeking to respond to the worsening climate crisis. And although ecofeminism and ecofeminist movements of the late twentieth century have been criticised for being essentialist and binary in outlook (ibid.) – today, ecofeminism is described as: ‘a transformative, inclusive and activist movement that has landed a strong place in academia and redefined environmentalism by fusing it with an intersectional lens’ (Ourkiya, 2021: 6).

What has recently caught my attention is the way that the word ‘feminist’ is being used by activists working to reverse climate change and coopted by policymakers and politicians working to shape and implement responses at the international level.

Former President of Ireland and longtime climate change and gender equality activist, Mary Robinson has suggested that we can understand climate change as ‘a man-made problem, which requires a feminist solution’. ⁴

During the summer of 2021, the Green European Foundation hosted an online climate feminist summer school ‘to explore the gendered impacts of the climate crisis, but also provide concrete tools, inspiration, and knowledge to equip participants in their own lives and with a special eye on COP26’.

The UN Generation Equality Action Coalition ⁵ - that focuses on climate change is called ‘Feminist Action for Climate Justice’.

What does a ‘feminist’ (policy) vision for climate change look like?

The vision of the civil society organisations, governments, international organisations and private sector actors that comprise the Generation Equality Action Coalition on feminist action for climate justice action includes four inter-related dimensions.

Firstly, ‘an inclusive and regenerative green economy that recognises the interconnectedness of climate change with issues of gender justice and protects and amplifies the voices of grassroots and indigenous communities, including frontline defenders, across social and political arenas’. Secondly, the participation of ‘women and girls in their full diversity equitably and meaningfully…in decision-making processes at all levels’. The third aspect requires financing institutions and the donor community to ‘reframe risk, prioritise women's organisations as priority partners’ and for them to be ‘held accountable to shift capital to support resilient societies and transformative investments in gender-just climate and ecosystem-based approaches’. The fourth aspect highlights the need for women and girls in all their diversity to be able to ‘equitably access climate finance, technologies and knowledge, and access and control natural resources for management and protection, including through securing land rights and ownership’.

In the run up to COP26, Member of the European Parliament for the Greens, Alice Bah Kuhnke (Sweden) argued that ‘it's time for a feminist, fierce and fossil free future’ and that ‘the climate summit should be on every feminist's agenda’.

Many are disappointed by the outcomes of COP26, and the ‘policy speak’ in UN-led campaigns may not be everyone's cup of tea. But there is no denying what we can see happening to the planet – in real time - irrespective of where we may be located. I share the sentiment that it's definitely time that the climate emergency itself was on all feminists’ agenda, if it is not already⁶. There is much urgent work for all of us to be getting on with. As Alice Walker puts it: ‘We have to live differently, or we will die in the same old ways’ (2020: 334).