Feminist Climate Policy in Industrialised States: A Gender-Just Climate Emergency Response

Feminist Climate Policy in Industrialised States explores ways in which policymakers can overcome institutional barriers and conventions in pursuit of the radical changes necessary for a gender-just climate emergency response.

In 2021, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change acknowledged that addressing the climate emergency must involve social justice and equality. Feminist approaches to decision-making, policy-making, community organising and their underpinning methodologies can enable this. The authors draw critically on case studies, research and interviews with feminist practitioners, legislators and leaders who have implemented significant changes, to signal how change might be achieved and ask what lessons can be drawn. The book posits that we need to ultimately move beyond the gender mainstreaming and gender equality issues which have been integrated into existing - and failing - structures, to more transformative feminist approaches. It concludes by identifying key strands of feminist-oriented praxis that offer the potential to expedite responses to climate change across multiple levels of governance.

With industrialised states shifting rightwards to a politics which diminishes the importance and urgency of gender equality, diversity, human rights and the need for climate action, this volume will inspire, guide, and provide tools for policymakers, politicians, community activists, academics, and students to take transformative action to address the climate emergency.

The Open Access version of this book, available at http: //www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license.

Susan Buckingham is a writer, researcher, consultant, campaigner and activist. She edits the Routledge series on Gender and Environments, and her work develops the understanding of links between gender and environment and applies this to different contexts. Most recently this has been in the UN Decade for Ocean Sustainability and through consultancies with the European Commission, including EIGE. She has edited and written extensively, is on the editorial board of the environmental justice journal Local Environment, and is currently writing a book on Ecofeminism. As an activist-academic, Susan worked with women’s organisations, and was a trustee and collaborator with Women’s Environmental Network from 2000-2012. Susan co-founded Friends of the Cam in 2020 which campaigns against destructive, masculinist planning and water pollution practices which are destroying the chalk streams of SE England. She is also an activist in climate and social justice campaigns.

Martin Hultman is Associate Professor at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden. Hultman leads three research groups analyzing ’masculinities and environment, ’rights of nature’ and ’climate change denial’. He heads the global research network Center for Studies of Climate Change Denial (CEFORCED) and was appointed the most influential academic in Gothenburg 2019 and awarded Linköping University alumni of the year 2021. As part of his academic work he publish chronicles in a wide range of newspapers and give public lectures commenting on contemporary politics. Recent books include Ecological masculinities (2018), Men, Masculinities and Earth (2021), Climate Obstruction (2022) and the forthcoming Survival: Rights of Nature, Degrowth and Ecological Masculinities at the end of Anthropocene.

Gunnhildur Lily Magnusdottir is Associate Professor in Political Science at the Department of Global Political Studies at Malmö University. Her main research field is climate policy-making, in particular how governmental authorities in Scandinavia and the European Union understand and work with gender and other the social dimensions of climate change and climate justice. Magnusdottir has published extensively on climate authorities, their practices, institutional norms and policy-making at different levels of governance. She currently leads a comparative research project on Gendered Norms and Practices in Nordic and Baltic Climate Policy Institutions: Implication for the Climate Transition (Nordforsk), exploring Nordic and Baltic governmental authorities and their institutional practices. She has previously been involved in various research projects financed by the Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development and the Swedish Energy Agency, which circle around justice in climate and energy policy-making.

Karen Morrow has been Professor of Environmental Law at Swansea University (2007-date), and formerly worked at Leeds University, Durham University, the Queen’s University of Belfast and the University of Buckingham. Her research interests centre on public participation in environmental law and policy making, and in particular on gender in the global climate governance regime. Her work spans theory and practice and multiple levels of law and governance, from the global/international to national and subnational levels. She also works on environmental law and policy in cross-border contexts in the UK. She is a member of the Earth Systems Governance Tipping Point subgroup. She was a founding co-editor of the Journal of Human Rights and the Environment and the IUCN e-journal. She sits on the editorial boards of the Journal of Human Rights and the Environment, the Environmental Law Review and the University of Western Australia Law Review and on the International Advisory Board for Gender and Environment book series (Routledge).