Climate institutions matter: The challenges of making gender-sensitive and inclusive climate policies

Abstract

Climate institutions such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), with its expert panel the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and the European Union, as well as national and local authorities in various sectors (such as transport, industry, energy, and agriculture), play a central role in developing and enacting climate strategies. Climate institutions, particularly in the Global North, have however been slow in their recognition of gender and other climate-relevant social aspects. With the help of feminist institutionalism, we analyze the contemporary climate regime and how it deals with gender and social differences, asking how climate institutions, originating in the Global North, organize bodies and institutionalize gender norms and relations. The main aim is to highlight existing institutional inertia and obstacles to transformative institutional practices that are needed for just and inclusive climate policies. The article is conceptual with examples drawn from institutional literature as well as empirical research on the United Nations, the European Union, and states in the Global North. We conclude that there is an increasing recognition of the gendered effects of climate change particularly in terms of the need for diverse representation in decision making. Institutional inertia, in particular path-dependent policy-making in climate institutions, however makes gender often invisible or associated with women only and therefore remains a major obstacle for the realization of inclusive and equal climate policies.