Just Energy Transition: Gender Equality And Empowerment

Delay in clean energy transition has a unique impact on women’s lives in developing countries. Women and small children are more affected by air pollution from cooking and heating using dirty fuels. Effective, gender-responsive strategies are needed to promote energy transition and ensure women’s health and energy security. Households are a major source of GHG emissions (exceeding electricity and transport). Indoor air pollution has a long-lasting negative impact on health, disproportionately affecting women and small children. The unavailability of clean and modern fuel for heating and cooking, which are perceived as women’s work in many households, is hazardous to their health as well as reducing the well-being of all household members. In many households, women and children are also responsible for fuel collection, which leads to their exposure to violence and reduces their time for leisure and productive activities. Empowerment of women and girls contributes to clean fuel for heating and cooking; green jobs and entrepreneurship and resilience to climate change. Gender dynamics significantly shape energy access, consumption, production, and decision-making processes. As the world grapples with energy transition and climate change challenges, the multifaceted nexus between gender, energy, and the environment has emerged as the key to finding a solution. In other words, it is becoming increasingly evident that gender equality impacts the distribution of benefits from energy innovations and is a condition of just and sustainable energy transition.