The Interrelated Nature of EU Gender and Environmental Policies

As global warming progresses and exacerbates existing gender inequalities, it has become increasingly clear that the climate crisis is not “gender neutral.” Environmental disasters disproportionately impact women. Integrating a gendered perspective in the conduction of environmental policy, specifically in the case of the EU, is critical to comprehensively assisting vulnerable populations and mitigating the ongoing crisis.

At the core of the link between the climate crisis and gender inequality are the disproportionate impacts on marginalized communities, specifically women. The feminization of poverty dictates that women are more likely to reside in flood-prone areas and live in unsafe housing during extreme weather events. Almost half of single-parent families in the EU face the threat of poverty, and almost nine out of ten single parents are women. Single women who are lower income are thus extremely vulnerable in times of crisis, such as during natural disasters due to climate change. 

Disparities in finance, health, and resource access are critical to addressing the impact of climate change on women. The significant wage and pension gaps between women and their male counterparts in Europe leave women with fewer financial resources to adapt to the risks of climate change. Intense weather, such as heat waves, has also presented health complications for women during pregnancy, as it increases premature births, stress for mothers, and the threat of vector-borne illnesses including malaria and Zika virus. Meanwhile, because lower-income elderly women struggle to equally access healthcare, the effects of increased air pollution are felt more significantly among that vulnerable population. They also face a higher rate of mortality in these disasters, often due to a compounding effect of access to relief services, healthcare, poverty, and social status. The Spanish Institute of Women, an independent organization within the Ministry of Health, Social Services, and Equality, reveals that 80 percent of climate refugees are women and girls due to environmental disasters affecting natural resources including water and fuel that women struggle to access more than their male counterparts and rely on more heavily.

The EU has put forth numerous initiatives regarding both the environment and elevating the status of women, such as promoting the reduction of carbon emissions and proposing gender equality recommendations. While efforts have successfully increased discourse on both subjects, policy recommendations for each have remained within two separate arenas. Talks of integrating a gendered lens into other aspects of policy, a concept known as gender mainstreaming, were first introduced at the 1995 Beijing World Conference on Women. Despite analyzing the potential impacts of policies on women being the foundation of gender mainstreaming, gender equity continues to be overshadowed in EU policy. In issuing aid following COVID-19, the EU’s recovery plan specifically allocated 37 percent of spending to climate action and 20 percent to digital transition, yet no specification was made toward gender equality, reflecting a lack of gender mainstreaming in issuing this policy. This reveals the gap in EU implementation of gender mainstreaming in climate initiatives. Documents such as “Stepping up Europe’s Climate Ambition: Investing in a climate-neutral future for the benefit of our people” are often gender-blind and reference vague demographics in their assessments of the climate crisis. This specific communication referenced “citizens” 18 times instead of including a gender-specific analysis of the impact of the recommendations. While the EU Adaptation Strategy and the Mobility Strategy and Action Plan are some of the few policy documents that explicitly mention gender, both mention it only once: one in a footnote and the other by name-dropping “gender mainstreaming,” without using the framework associated with the term. 

Failure to acknowledge gender is further demonstrated in Impact Assessments for the European Climate Law. This law serves as a key component of the European Green Deal, legally obligating countries to reduce greenhouse gasses by 55 percent by 2030 and become climate-neutral by 2050. However, instead of conducting a new impact assessment for this law, the Commission referred only to two earlier assessments, neither of which mention gender at all. Monumental frameworks for EU environmental actions that fail to take into account gender inequity overlook the disproportionate impact of the climate crisis on women and undermine the efficacy of its environmental efforts. Advocating for a climate-neutral economy and strengthening gender equality cannot exist separately in policy when both issues deeply intersect. The failure to adequately utilize a gender lens in current policies and the overall inability to explicitly include gender equality in EU climate policy documents perpetuates gendered social and economic disparities. 

The gendering of climate change extends to those in climate leadership. Taking into account the under-representation of women in EU climate change decision-making bodies is critical for assessments of EU shortcomings in recognizing the relation between gender and environmental policy. At the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties in 2021, men occupied ten of the 12 leadership positions on the UK team. A similar lack of female representation is demonstrated in the European Parliament committees for the Green Deal, as only two of the ten chairs belong to women. The continued exclusion of women from leadership in environmental policy will only exacerbate the omission of gender in future conversations.

Promoting women's involvement in climate decisions possesses significant benefits, not just for raising the status of women but for business efficacy and achievement of climate goals. Increasing female leadership and applying a gender lens to environmental policy has extensive economic and business incentives. A recent report from the European Investment Fund found that female-led firms have higher environmental, social, and governance scores than other companies. Businesses with more women in leadership positions have also adopted environmentally friendly practices at higher rates and have more transparency in disclosing greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, women leaders were found to be more likely to invest in renewable energy and pursue energy efficiency practices. Countries with more women in parliament are more likely to ratify environmental treaties and adopt policies addressing climate change, revealing the link between female leaders and fighting the climate crisis. Elevating more women to leadership and decision-making positions would drive economic growth and have positive social, environmental, and climate spillovers. However, women still face significant barriers to gaining leadership positions and starting companies. For example, in Europe, only two percent of invested capital goes to all-female founding teams of startups while co-ed teams get five percent and male-only teams receive the other 93 percent. Unequal distribution of resources and allocation of funds further excludes women and works only to stall potential progress in developing new policies and initiatives that can work to mitigate the climate crisis. 

Ecofeminist researcher and activist V’cenza Cirefice has found that women are on the front lines of the battle against climate change. Not only do they face the worst impacts of it, but they are also often the most outspoken and constitute most of the efforts to combat the crisis. Due to the patriarchal and hierarchical structure of society, horizontal organizing and consensus decision-making must occur to fight against climate change in the EU. A gendered approach to climate change assesses how gender inequalities magnify disparities to refocus policies and comprehensively combat the issue. Mainstreaming gender into budgeting structures and processes in areas of climate financing and transitions to green technology is also extremely important to fulfill EU gender mainstreaming commitments. While the EU has made strides in addressing climate change and gender inequalities separately, recognizing the interrelation of these issues when creating policy and the role of women in combating the environmental crisis must occur.