UK pledges £165m to ‘progress gender equality while tackling climate change’

COP President Alok Sharma will today announce how £165 million of UK funding will progress gender equality while tackling climate change.

At its COP26 Gender Day on Tuesday 9 November, the UK will announce £165 million to tackle climate change while addressing the inequalities that make women and girls more vulnerable to climate change and empowering them to take climate action.

Around the world, the UN has found that women are more vulnerable to the effects of climate change than men, in part because they constitute a large majority of the world’s poor and often depend on small-scale farming for a livelihood, which is particularly vulnerable to climate change. Women and children can comprise 80% of those displaced by climate-related disaster. But addressing gender inequality has also been proven to advance efforts to tackle climate change.

The government says up to £45 million will go toward helping empower local communities and grassroots women’s groups in Asia and the Pacific to challenge gender inequalities and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

£120 million will be put to “building resilience, prevent pollution, protect biodiversity, strengthen renewable energy and better manage waste, while also supporting women’s leadership, access to finance, education and skills” in Bangladesh.

The chair of the flagship Gender Day event, UK International Champion on Adaptation and Resilience for the COP26 Presidency, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, said: “It is women, girls and those who are already most marginalised, that will be most severely impacted by climate change. But they also have a critical role to play to address the climate crisis.

“The UK is committed to addressing this dual challenge head on, committing new funding to empower communities and women’s groups to take locally-led adaptation action, to build local, national and global resilience. I urge more countries to make commitments to implement the UNFCCC Gender Action Plan and deliver the goals of the Feminist Action for Climate Justice.”

COP26 President Alok Sharma and Anne-Marie Trevelyan will host the UK’s Presidency Gender Day event accompanied by Little Amal, the 3.5 metre puppet travelling 8,000km in support of refugees, and Brianna Fruean, a Samoan Climate Change activist.