Written by Sinéad Magner, WEDO, who co-leads the Just Transition working group of the Women and Gender Constituency and recently completed research exploring the efficacy of Just Energy Transition Partnerships (i.e. JET-Ps).
As the latest round of UN climate negotiations in Bonn (technically called SB62) came to a close, feminist advocates left the Just Transition Work Programme (JTWP) negotiating rooms with a rare sense of hope for what’s to come. After two weeks of intense negotiations, hallway huddles, and bilateral meetings, countries agreed to move forward a draft decisionthat will be finalized at COP30 in Brazil later this year.
Why This Matters
A just transition means transforming our systems in ways that protect workers, communities, and those most affected by both climate change and structural inequality. For years, the idea has been discussed and the current Work Programme has seen a number of global dialogues held on the topic. Now, however, governments are beginning to rally around concrete proposals that could move us from conversation to implementation.
The draft decision includes several elements to shift the current work programme from dialogue to action including: 1) a set of just transition principles; 2) an invitation for countries to include just transition plans in their national climate commitments (NDCs); and, 3) an opening for the creation of a global just transition mechanism. This proposed mechanism would be a new institutional structure that provides real support to countries and communities as they navigate the shift away from fossil fuels.
This progress is also a testament to collective advocacy. Feminists, trade unions, environmental groups, youth, and Indigenous Peoples have been central to shaping the text, and are united in pushing for its full adoption at COP30.
Toward a Global Just Transition Mechanism
One of the most promising developments is the proposal for a global just transition mechanism. Civil society and trade unions built this idea together and in Bonn, after many weeks of dialogue and collective advocacy, countries began to include the proposal in their own positions. .
Collectively, we ensivion this mechanism as a participatory and inclusive institutional arrangement that ensures that the Just Transition Work Programme becomes operationalised. It can act as a hub to provide assistance to countries and communities navigating the just transition and facilitate international cooperation and collaboration. If countries agree to this at COP30, it could help ensure just transition plans reflect the needs of real people, not just high-level policies. This could be a major step toward linking global negotiations with national and local realities.
Cross-constituency proposal for a global just transition mechanism
Making Care Work Visible
Feminist advocates have long warned that unless the transition acknowledges the unequal distribution of labor, especially unpaid care work, it will deepen inequality.. Every day, 16.4 billion hours of unpaid care work is carried out, 76% of which is carried out by women. This work, unrecognised and excluded from average GDP calculations, means that 65% of women’s overall working hours globally are unpaid. For the transition to be just, we must end the invisibility of care work in the formal economy and prevent it from acting as an unpaid scaffolding and subsidy to future economies.
The inclusion in the COP30 draft decision of specific language around the need to consider care work and informal work in just transition plans and policies has the potential to transform how care work is recognised, redistributed, and rewarded, as well as providing a concrete framework that feminists can use to advance a feminist agenda in climate plans at the national level.
Gender-responsive just transitions
The gendered impacts of the climate crisis and the energy transition go beyond care. Women and gender-diverse people are overrepresented in precarious work, informal work, and unpaid work. Gender biases, social and cultural barriers, and discrimination mean that women stand to lose out on job opportunities in emerging sustainable sectors. Women produce up to 80% of food in the Global South and perform up to 90% of agricultural labour for both subsistence and income, yet patriarchal laws, cultural norms, and legal inefficiencies hinder women’s rights to property and land, leading to issues accessing loans and credit. And gender-based violence remains the most prevalent human rights abuse in the world, preventing women, girls, and gender-diverse people from being full and active participants in society, when we know that participation is key to a just transition.
We very clearly need a just transition that is feminist and that addresses these challenges head-on. The COP30 draft decision enshrines as a principle the need to take a gender-responsive approach when designing and implementing just transition pathways. This is vital, and yet already under threat.
In the current context of growing backlash against women and gender-diverse people’s rights, it is perhaps no surprise that we saw some countries push to remove references to gender from the text.
These attempts must be resisted. Removing core principles from the dialogue process undermines trust, but more importantly, our rights are not up for negotiation. Gender equality is not a side issue. It is a pillar of any truly just transition.
Fierce feminist resistance to the erasure of our rights needs to be met by the strong solidarity of gender champions in the room in Belém.
What’s next?
We know that a just transition cannot wait. As the devastating impacts of the climate crisis increase day-by-day, feminists, workers, environmentalists, youth, Indigenous People, Afrodescendents, disabled people, and the working-class are demanding climate policies that improve our lives. The movement is broad and it is united around the same call: that the COP30 JTWP decision center people and prioritize action. COP30 in Belém provides an opportunity to show that consensus is possible and that the climate negotiations can deliver real positive change for people and communities.
