Expert Group Meeting report – Progress of the world’s women 2026: Gender equality in the age of climate crisis

This report summarizes the proceedings and key takeaways from an expert group meeting (EGM) convened by UN Women to inform the tenth edition of Progress of the world’s women. Bringing together leading feminist scholars, climate and environmental researchers, data experts, and advocates, the EGM tested and refined a feminist climate justice framework grounded in recognition, redistribution, representation, and reparation, and attentive to intersectional inequalities and the interdependence of people and nature.

Across four thematic sessions, the participants:

• Reviewed emerging evidence on the gendered impacts of climate and environmental crises.
• Explored gender-transformative adaptation pathways as they apply to water and urban contexts.
• Examined gender-just mitigation strategies, including energy transitions, nature-based solutions, and care economies.
• Interrogated the politics and architecture of climate finance.

Discussions highlighted the potential of innovative data analysis while emphasizing the limits of technocratic approaches that ignore power, politics, and lived experience. The meeting generated concrete guidance for the forthcoming report, directions for case selection and data analysis, and strategies to connect visionary feminist climate justice agendas with practical levers such as care services, basic infrastructure, social protection, and fairer tax and finance systems.