Climate Finance: Why Does It Matter for Women?

The financing of climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies in developing countries is one of the core issue at the heart of the political debate over the global climate protection policy architecture to be set in place by the Paris 2015 agreement, which will govern the global response to climate change from 2020 onwards and will have significant implications for sustainable development in developing countries. This agreement will also have implication for the nature, pace and extent of sustainable development in developing countries. Climate financing is a critical lever for the transformation to low carbon pathways and for undertaking mitigation actions to reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gases emissions which have been identified by science as the key culprit behind global warming. At the same time, financing climate change mitigation and adaptation actions in developing countries, if not carefully managed, can compete for the scarce overseas development assistance (ODA) funds as well as for domestically mobilized funds in developing countries that are important for achieving poverty eradication, social development and gender justice. Climate finance must be managed both at the global level and regional and national level to ensure and promote gender equality and the empowerment of women as key actors both in climate protection and sustainable development efforts. Gender-responsive budgeting exercises and analyses will need to take on board the impacts of climate change as well as its financing for sustained gender justice. This chapter explores the key issues and challenges for gender sensitization of climate finance instruments and mechanisms and undertakes a tentative assessment of what linkages exist between climate finance, fiscal policy and gender-responsive budgeting?