The UK Government has promised to put women and girls at the heart of everything it does – COP29 is the first real opportunity to honour that commitment. As world leaders descend on Baku for COP29, CARE International UK is urging the UK Government to seize this moment and prioritise its leadership on climate and gender equality, through climate finance that reaches women.
CARE is calling on the UK Government to:
Support a $1 Trillion global commitment for public climate finance
Climate records are tumbling like dominoes. The summer of 2024 was the hottest on record: extreme heat smothered multiple continents and ocean temperature rose to alarming highs, triggering devastating storms. Extreme weather events are increasing in frequency and severity, claiming lives, destroying houses and infrastructure, and wreaking economies.
Joining calls for developed countries to scale up their funding commitments, CARE is urging the UK, together with other world leaders, to commit to $1 trillion globally in public climate finance per year, to support developing countries’ loss and damage and adaptation efforts and prevent global warming escalating beyond control.
Ensure climate finance is genuinely ‘new’ money
CARE is calling for the UK to ensure climate finance is not siphoned from the aid budget. 93 per cent of climate finance reported by wealthy countries between 2011 and 2020 was taken directly from development aid. Goverments promised that climate finance would be ‘new and additional’ money, but the UK chooses to take its contribution largely from the aid budget, effectively double counting crucial funding for the world’s poorest women and girls. The Labour Government are yet to indicate they will reverse this position.
Properly fund women’s rights organisations
CARE is also calling for UK climate finance to properly fund women’s rights organisations through a dedicated climate and gender justice programme. Women and girls are bearing the brunt of the climate crisis; 80 per cent of those displaced by climate change are women, and women and girls are at greater risk of violence in the aftermath of climate-induced emergencies. Climate change isn’t just a threat to the environment; it is a direct attack on women’s livelihoods, health, and safety. Women are also most often the ones leading their families and communities as they deal with the impacts.
CARE’s research found that in 2022, less than 1% of UK bilateral climate finance targeted gender equality, despite overwhelming evidence that addressing climate and gender justice together is both effective and necessary. Just 0.2% of climate finance reached women’s rights organisations, even though these organisations are recognised as critical agents of change in gender-responsive climate action. Less than half of UK climate finance projects considered gender equality at all.
Helen Pankhurst, Gender Equality Advisor at Care International UK, said:
“Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, promised to show ‘global leadership’ on climate action. Foreign Secretary David Lammy committed to using ‘all levers’ - from diplomatic to financial - to tackle the climate crisis. Anneliese Dodds, Minister for Women and Equalities, promised equality will be ‘at the heart of everything government does’. This is the moment for those promises to be kept, and for the UK to restore its reputation as a world leader on climate. The UK must commit to funding the women who are worst affected, and the women who are leading change.”
Francesca Rhodes, Senior Policy Adviser on Climate and Gender at CARE International UK, said:
"COP29 is an opportunity for the Government to ensure its ‘Britain is back’ message is more than just a slogan. The UK Government has promised to take a ‘global lead’ on the climate crisis – and it’s got an opportunity now to put its money where its mouth is. It cannot pass up this chance to recognise the disproportionate impacts felt by the world’s poorest women and girls, and to make a genuine difference for them. The UK is far behind where it should be on supporting women leaders on the frontlines of climate action. We urge the Government to make increasing this a priority. The climate crisis is spiralling out of control; we don’t have time to waste.”
Marlene Achoki, Global Policy Lead at CARE Climate Justice Centre, said:
"The cost of climate inaction is higher than the cost of climate action. Parties must reset the balance and increase the funding for adaptation, and loss and damage, with strict interim targets. Negotiations must agree upon a fit-for-purpose, needs- and rights-based climate finance goal to close the climate finance gap, with grants replacing loans to break the cycle of debt and unlock true potential for sustainable development. It is critical Parties agree on an inclusive climate action that empowers women and girls, putting them at the forefront of decision-making processes.”
Media enquiries during COP29
For all media enquiries please contact:
Carey Ellis, Senior Media Manager at CARE International UK, ellis@careinternational.org
Note to Editors
CARE is a pioneer in climate justice. In 2002 CARE Bangladesh launched the first climate community-based climate adaptation project, aimed at reducing the vulnerability to climate change-related disasters. In 2023, CARE implemented 273 projects contributing to building climate resilience for nearly 4.5 million people in 62 countries.
CARE’s work on climate change has the most vulnerable at the centre: the climate crisis disproportionately affects marginalised communities and groups, particularly women and girls, those who are least responsible for causing it.
CARE’s COP29 Position Paper can be accessed HERE (in English, Arabic, French, and Spanish).
CARE spokespeople available in Baku during COP29:
- Francesca Rhodes, Senior Policy Adviser on Climate and Gender, CARE International UK
- Marlene Achoki, Global Policy Lead, CARE Climate Justice Center (based in Kenya)
- Chikondi Chabvuta, Southern Africa Region Advocacy Advisor, CARE Malawi
- Titilope Akosa, Executive Director of CARE’s partner organisation in Nigeria, the Centre for 21st Century Issues and one of the Alternate Civil Society Observers to the Green Climate Fund
- Mrityunjoy Das, Deputy Director, Humanitarian and Climate Action Program, CARE Bangladesh
- Obed Koringo, Climate Policy Advisor, CARE Denmark (based in Kenya)
- John Nordbo, Senior Climate Adviser, CARE Denmark
- Rosa van Driel, Senior Gender Advisor, CARE Netherlands