Towards a Gender-Just Transition: A Human Rights Approach to Women’s Participation in the Energy Transition

The Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights published a new briefing paper on Women’s Participation in the Energy Transition: A Human Rights Approach. This new publication analyses the status of women’s representation and engagement in the global push to transform our energy systems in the face of the climate emergency, while developing a human rights approach to ensure women’s meaningful participation in this process. By 2050 two-thirds of total energy supply must shift from fossil fuel to renewable energy, this would mean a profound transformation in the way we produce, consume, organize, and finance our energy systems. This global shift is only comparable with the Industrial Revolution of the XIX century. Yet women in all their diversity are being left behind of this global process.

At the same time, the massive energy transformation opens a unique possibility to shift gender power imbalances and ensure women’s voices, perspectives and knowledge are harnessed to steer the energy transition and stage the future of renewable energy with a human rights and gender perspective. This poses several challenges. How can we create participatory frameworks and spaces that create meaningful opportunities for marginalized women to influence the course of the energy transition? What measures should be advanced to strengthen gender equality and democratic governance? What energy models and alternatives can better accommodate women’s needs and enhance their opportunities to participate at all levels of decision-making?

While efforts and promising practices to engage communities and enhance women’s participation are significant, one of the keyways to achieve this is through leveraging international human rights law. As the briefing paper further explains, the international human rights framework provides a wide range of norms, standards and principles that offer guidance to States and other stakeholders to articulate effective and meaningful mechanisms for rights-holders, especially in marginalized communities, as well as to participate in and shape the policies that affect their lives.

This new briefing paper provides an overview of the current trends of women’s participation in the rapidly evolving renewable energy sector, as well as normative tools and policy recommendations to use human rights law as a compass for developing energy systems that are not only renewable, but socially and gender-just.

As today humanity’s greatest challenge is to tackle the environmental breakdown while addressing growing inequalities, we hope this briefing paper can contribute to inform how a wide variety of stakeholders can take action and ensure a gender-just transition to a low-carbon world.

We want to thank partner organizations working at the ground level that provided case studies to illustrate some of the policy recommendations on this brief. As well as the constant support of FES Geneva in the development of this project.