The UN Climate Summit COP30 concluded on Saturday with governments adopting the Belém Gender Action Plan (GAP) under the Lima Gender Work Programme, marking what negotiators described as a “critical moment” for embedding gender equality into global climate governance.
The new plan, agreed after intense consultations, places women’s leadership and gender-responsive policy at the core of climate decisions. Delegates said the task now is turning commitments into concrete action, ensuring finance, capacity and political will converge to deliver tangible outcomes for communities most affected by the climate crisis.
The Belém Plan urges countries to prioritise gender-disaggregated data, enhance the role of national gender–climate focal points, and ensure Indigenous and marginalised women’s perspectives inform national climate policies. New provisions on leadership training, safety protocols and travel support aim to increase women’s participation across UNFCCC bodies and negotiation tracks.
The text also stresses cross-sectoral collaboration among climate, gender, human rights and development actors, calling on governments to fully integrate gender considerations into national climate plans, NAPs, NDCs and UNFCCC reporting frameworks.
Climate finance remains central. The plan highlights the need for Loss and Damage and adaptation finance to improve accessibility for rural and vulnerable women, while acknowledging systemic barriers such as data gaps, limited resources, bureaucratic burdens and weak political backing for grassroots women’s groups.
“YouthNet Global’s Additional National Coordinator, Saila Sobnom Richi, who attended COP30, said the plan is an important step despite its shortcomings. ‘The GAP is not perfect but it is necessary now,’ she noted. ‘Improvements can come through further interventions, but we need this framework to make climate action inclusive, equitable and empowering for women across all communities.’”
The plan further recognises that race, disability, age and other intersecting factors shape people’s vulnerabilities and capacities, urging Parties to strengthen evidence-based approaches to address these multidimensional inequalities over the coming decade.
Civil society organisations welcomed the outcome as a milestone for climate equity, emphasising that climate justice and gender justice are inseparable. Many argued that patriarchal systems enabling social inequality are deeply linked to environmental exploitation, and warned that climate policy that ignores these root causes risks treating only the symptoms.
Bangladeshi youth delegate Sohanur Rahman, Executive Coordinator of YouthNet Global and a member of the MenEngage Alliance climate justice working group, stressed the need to involve men and boys in driving gender-responsive climate action. Transforming patriarchal masculinities and encouraging male allies, he argued, is essential for building equitable and resilient societies.
He pointed to initiatives like EcoMen, which promote men’s engagement in climate justice work and challenge harmful gender norms. “Strongman politics and patriarchal nationalism continue to undermine cooperation and climate ambition,” Sohanur said. “It is urgent for men to dismantle ideologies that sustain inequality, climate breakdown and environmental degradation.”
As COP30 closed, negotiators said the true test of the Belém Gender Action Plan will be its implementation whether countries deliver the resources, policies and accountability needed to translate its commitments into real, lasting change on the ground.
