Measure of Change: Moving Toward Gender And Climate Justice Through Data

What would it mean to build a future that centres care, connection, and mutual flourishing?

If progress was measured by the wellbeing of people and the planet?

And the ability to secure a climate-resilient future?

_{Photo Credit: Alex Aparicio}

_{Photo Credit: Alex Aparicio}

_{Photo Credit: Richard Nyoni}

_{Photo Credit: Richard Nyoni}

_{Photo Credit: Equal Stock}

_{Photo Credit: Equal Stock}

_{Photo Credit: Elle Leontiev}

_{Photo Credit: Elle Leontiev}

_{Photo Credit: Tunde Buremo}

_{Photo Credit: Tunde Buremo}

_{Photo Credit: Harjono Djoyobisono}

_{Photo Credit: Harjono Djoyobisono}

In the face of worsening climate impacts, widening global inequalities, and coordinated attacks to roll back rights, the data and evidence to steer new trajectories exist. To embrace a model that sustains life, rather than extracts and exploits.

This piece is about the data we need to move us toward gender and climate justice – the knowledge, voices, and choices about

who counts?

who decides?

and who benefits?

We explore how inclusive data – and alternative ways of measuring progress – can chart new pathways toward gender-just climate futures.

A South Asian woman standing in a field raking grains, image

_{Photo Credit: Dibakar Roy}

Part 1: Entanglements

Gender Inequality and The Climate Crisis

A South Asian woman is sowing seeds, image

_{Photo Credit: pranav ck}

No one escapes the harmful effects of the climate crisis. But its impacts are unevenly distributed and heavily gendered.

Women, girls, and gender diverse people face unique threats to their livelihoods, health, and safety, while holding knowledge and lived experience that is key to building climate resilience.

As a ‘risk multiplier’, the climate crisis amplifies existing inequalities – racial injustice, ableism, economic injustice, for example. Disparities in power, autonomy, and access mean its effects are more acute for marginalised groups including Indigenous people, People of Colour, people with disabilities, LGBTIQ+ people, migrants, older and younger people, and people living in rural, conflict and disaster-prone areas.

Data illuminates these experiences. It reveals how the climate crisis intersects with systems of oppression, and the ways people are navigating, resisting, and shaping those realities in pursuit of gender and climate justice.

For decades, women have been leading the charge, building ‘ecosystems of wellbeing and care’. In the words of Pacific Feminists Defending the Living Planet:

“We act for life itself—ours, all species, and generations ahead.”

Although systemic action is slow, undermined by forces working to block gender equality and meaningful climate action, inclusive data charts a path forward. It enables the development of strategies and solutions that support the mutual flourishing of people and the planet.

While climate impacts and resilience are often measured at community or household levels, it is at the level of individuals that their full, and often unequal, effects come into view.

This kind of data is critical for strengthening inclusive and effective climate resilience.

A South Asia woman standing in a field of cotton plants, image

_{Photo Credit: EqualStock}

Two woman are harvesting crops from some water, image

_{Photo Credit: Gowtham AGM}

Land and Natural Resource Access

Around the world, women depend on natural resources more – whether to generate income or provide for their families – and yet, have less access to these resources.

Women are often responsible for securing food, water, and fuel for their families. As these natural resources become scarce due to a changing climate, women are forced to travel further or work harder.

According to UN Women, 47.8 million more women face food insecurity and hunger than men, and this is set to worsen.

By 2050, climate change may push up to 158 million more women and girls into poverty – 16 million more than the total number of men and boys, under a worse-case climate scenario.

Globally, one in every four women and girls lacked access to safely managed drinking water, and two in every five lacked access to safely managed sanitation in 2024. Where people lack safe drinking water and sanitation close to home, inequalities increase, with women, girls, and gender diverse people bearing the brunt: walking farther for water, especially during droughts; managing periods without privacy and sufficient water and sanitation, caring for those made sick by unsafe water; facing heightened health and safety risks during floods; and too often being left out the decisions that shape it all.

Securing women’s access to land and natural resources is essential in its own right, but also has powerful ripple effects. Individual-level data makes these disparities visible, while tracing the ways women are building resilience – for themselves, their families, and communities.

Climate Change and the Surge in Gender-Based Violence

An alarming pattern emerges in the aftermath of a natural disaster: the rate and severity of gender-based violence surges.

Climate impacts intensify the underlying drivers of gender-based violence, including displacement, food insecurity, economic instability, and social disruption caused by extreme weather events. Inclusive data is needed to identify these experiences and enable leaders to take decisive action.

One study found a 28 percent increase in femicide during heatwaves.

With every 1°C rise in global temperature there is a 4.7 percent increase in intimate partner violence. If temperatures increase by 2°C, 40 million more women and girls are likely to experience intimate partner violence…

…each year…

by 2090.

This number more than doubles in a scenario where temperature increases by 3.5°C.

In the context of fragile and conflict-affected settings – where women and girls are already more vulnerable to sexual and gender-based violence – climate impacts intensify social, political, and economic tensions, and gender-based violence rises.

A future free from gender-based violence requires climate justice. It requires individual-level and gender-sensitive data to address and prevent gender-based violence in the face of increasing climate-related stressors.

a group of women standing next to each other in a field

_{Photo Credit: EqualStock}

Health and Survival

When disasters hit, women and girls are more likely to be injured and less likely to survive.

Women and children are 14 times more likely than men to die in a disaster, according to UNDP.

For example, 70 percent of adults who died in the 2009 tsunami in Tonga and Samoa were women.

Research has also highlighted the harassment, exclusion, marginalisation, and discrimination faced by LGBTQIA+ communities in disaster settings can directly affect health outcomes, both physical and mental. For example, research by Oxfam Australia explored the stories of everyday life of Fijian sexual and gender minorities before and after a tropical cyclone. It found discrimination and harassment experienced by sexual and gender minorities undermine their attempts to build secure livelihoods, increases vulnerability to shocks, and reduces capacity for recovery – highlighting the importance of strengthening LGBTQIA+ inclusion.

Deep-rooted gender inequalities have created disparities in access to resources and information, mobility, and decision-making. Following a disaster, women, girls, and gender diverse people tend to have less access to relief and assistance, which further threatens their wellbeing and recovery, often leaving them more vulnerable to future climate-related shocks.

An analysis of 130 peer-reviewed studies shows the majority (89) found women were more affected by health impacts associated with climate change than men.

While women and girls are more likely to die in heatwaves in France, China and India and in tropical cyclones in Bangladesh and the Philippines, in some cases, men can face higher risks, including a higher risk of suicide following extreme weather events and greater risk of certain health issues associated with working outdoors.

The climate crisis also has specific impacts on maternal and neonatal health. In times of drought, food insecurity or extreme heat, pregnant people face increased risk of complications. Rising temperatures are contributing the spread of illnesses and disease linked to miscarriage, premature birth, and birth defects.

For too many, the climate crisis is a direct threat to life, health, and wellbeing. Inclusive, individual-level data reveals these impacts, while enabling the design of targeted, evidence-based health strategies.

Climate Change and Care Work

Care work is life sustaining – whether taking care of children and family members, communities, or the natural world around us.

But the distribution of care work is extremely uneven globally, with women carrying out 75 percent of unpaid care work - three times more than men.

This unequal load only increases when climate disasters strike, as women take on additional work to support their families and communities recover and rebuild.

When severe weather and a natural disaster closed schools in Samoa in 2023, parents and caregivers – predominately women – reduced paid work and time spent on their own care, education, and leisure.

A similar pictures emerges in Cambodia in 2024, as well as Tonga in 2022 where an estimated 77 percent of women reported their unpaid care work burdens had worsened as a result of disasters.

In the same year, an Equality Insights study in Tonga showed that people with disability and people living in rural areas were more likely to report being severely impacted by a natural hazard.

While women take on a greater share of care burdens for their families and communities, they are also at the forefront of climate justice movements and efforts to care for the planet.

Research shows that women are key agents of change in climate resilience efforts. But despite their important role, women remain under-represented in climate-related decision-making.

A Black woman is harvesting crops and has a baby in a carrier on her back

_{Photo Credit: Annie Spratt}

Beyond mapping the contours of the problem, data catalyses action.

It is critical for effective and inclusive climate action that moves us towards gender and climate justice.

A South Asian woman in a field with a cow, image

_{Photo Credit: EqualStock}

Part 2: Roots

The Role of Data in Moving Us Towards Gender and Climate Justice

A South Asian woman and water buffalo crossing a shallow river., image

_{Photo Credit: Sushanta Rokka}

Approaches to strengthening climate resilience often focus on technical solutions...

improving built infrastructure,

setting up early warning systems,

or switching to drought-resistant crops,

for example.

Though much needed, the role of data in enabling more effective, inclusive, and responsive climate strategies is often overlooked.

Despite increasing recognition of the links between gender inequality and the climate crisis, significant gender data gaps about the environment persist. In many cases, data remains patchy or entirely missing.

But data is the foundation, informing climate finance, policy, and action. It enables us to understand the scale and severity of climate impacts on women, girls, and gender diverse people, as well as their adaptive capacities. It tells us how they exercise agency, and the contributions they make to respond, rebuild, and strengthen resilience.

For people whose perspectives have been historically overlooked and excluded, inclusive data makes their experiences visible to decision-makers, connecting lived realities to climate strategies.

_{Photo Credit: Mirna Wabi-Sabi}

_{Photo Credit: Mirna Wabi-Sabi}

This data is critical for strengthening gender-responsive climate resilience and advancing climate justice, whether just transition or loss and damage. When grounded in feminist and inclusive approaches, data is a powerful tool for systemic change.

But this requires a shift in the way we approach data on climate, resilience, and sustainable development...

expanding what is measured and how it is measured.

What we choose to measure quietly defines what gets prioritised.

But too often, progress is measured narrowly and partially, by increases to GDP growth, productivity, or efficiency.

And the fuller picture of human and planetary wellbeing slips from view.

A growing chorus is challenging convention and shifting the focus by asking different questions: Are people safe, healthy, and resilient? Are communities equipped to adapt? Are ecosystems able to endure? Are they able to thrive?

An increasing number of frameworks challenge growth-centred models of progress and place human and planetary wellbeing at the centre – from a feminist wellbeing economy, to Doughnut Economics, Degrowth, and Feminist Economic Alternatives. These frameworks draw on different indicators to measure progress such as access to food and water, income distribution, life satisfaction, air and water quality, carbon emissions, or biodiversity loss.

What we measure – and what we prioritise – is also shaped by the tools, methods, and approaches to data collection.

Inclusive and gender-sensitive approaches are required to capture the uneven impacts of the climate crisis as well as the contributions of women, girls, and gender diverse people.

For example, research by the University of Technology Sydney highlights the gendered nature of how climate events and preparedness are perceived, showing that even within the same household, people may define a climate event or disaster differently.

Embracing a plurality of voices and knowledge sources is also essential. This involves drawing on Indigenous and Traditional Ecological Knowledge, feminist and participatory approaches, valuing qualitative data, and using methods that capture lived experiences and subjective resilience, or people’s perceptions of their resilience. This is key to realising a vision for the future that supports the mutual flourishing of people and the planet.

One approach that is critical to strengthening inclusive and effective climate resilience is individual measurement. Collecting data from multiple adults within a home, rather than from a ‘head of household’, paints a fuller picture. Individual measurement reveals who is most impacted in a changing climate, who has lower or higher capacity to adapt, and who faces compounding risks, as well as the ways individuals exercise agency and build resilience.

This kind of data shows how climate impacts and resilience are shaped by gender, age, disability, and other characteristics, providing granular insights on intersectional inequalities and within-household differences. Recent research shows that even within the same households, individuals do not perceive they have the same levels of resilience to climate events such as floods, droughts, landslides, and severe storms.

Individual-level data enables the design of effective, targeted, and responsive climate strategies, and more equitable distribution of benefits from climate investments.

_{Photo Credit: Ali Mkumbwa}

_{Photo Credit: Ali Mkumbwa}

_{Photo Credit:}_{Quang Nguyen Vinh}

_{Photo Credit:}_{Quang Nguyen Vinh}

_{Photo Credit: Drew Masmar}

_{Photo Credit: Drew Masmar}

_{Photo Credit: Gidon Agaza}

_{Photo Credit: Gidon Agaza}

A woman with a head covering in a field of plants harvesting crops, image

_{Photo Credit: Jyoti Singh}

Part 3

Resources and Financial

Flows

A woman standing at the edge of a body of water, image

_{Photo Credit: Noah Grossenbacher}

While data can illuminate the path towards gender and climate justice, it also reveals a hard truth.

Many countries are facing the full force of the climate crisis and attempting to build resilient futures while being weighed down by mounting debt.

The numbers are evidence of deeply-rooted global inequalities.

Around 3.4 billion people live in countries that spend more on servicing debt than on either health or education. Global Majority advocates highlight debt justice as a cornerstone of climate justice.

The ability to pursue sustainable development pathways and climate-resilient futures is shaped by fiscal space, with debt burdens constraining spending on social protection and climate adaption.

When climate finance relies on debt-based instruments such as bonds and credit products, it reproduces and deepens patterns of economic injustice, while failing to reflect the historical responsibility of high emitters. Small Islands Developing States – on the frontlines of the climate crisis – have called for climate-just finance such as grants, concessional loans, and debt justice including debt suspension following natural disasters.

Despite efforts to support gender-responsive adaptation, climate finance remains deeply gendered. A mere 0.01% of global finance supports projects that address both climate and women's rights, according to the United Nations. In 2022, only three percent of adaption funding targeted gender equality objectives.

This is despite overwhelming evidence that countries that perform better on women’s inclusion, justice, and security are more climate resilient, and investing in autonomous feminist movements is the most effective way to advance gender equality.

_{Photo Credit: Elle Leontiev}

From the local to the global, our collective futures are bound together.

With the power to unmask inequalities, influence global priorities, and bring visibility to lived experiences, data is one of the most impactful tools to move us towards gender and climate justice, especially in the hands of advocates and change-makers.

Data is visibility, information, and power. When grounded in feminist and inclusive approaches, it can drive us towards a flourishing future for people and the planet.

_{Photo Credit: Damir Omeroić}

Measure of Change: Moving Toward Gender and Climate Justice Through Data
_{Banner photo credit: Youssef Elbelghiti}

We recognise this always was and always will be Aboriginal land. We pay our respects to the Traditional Custodians of the lands on which we work and extend that respect to all First Nations people. We acknowledge the deep and continuing connections to Country, which have been cared for since time immemorial and stand with Indigenous peoples leading the charge for climate justice.

Part I: Entanglements
Part II: Roots
Part III: Resources and Financial Flows

Revealing Resilience is an initiative that champions the use of inclusive data and measurement tools to strengthen gender equality, disability and social inclusion in climate resilience and sustainable development. Funded by the Australian Government through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), Revealing Resilience is led by the University of Technology Sydney-Institute for Sustainable Futures with the International Women’s Development Agency’s flagship program Equality Insights.