An intersectional feminist reading of the UK Government’s Carbon Budget and Growth Delivery Plan
Last month, the UK Government published its new Climate Plan – Carbon Budget and Growth Delivery Plan (CBGDP) – setting out how it intends to “meet its statutory carbon budgets and secure the benefits of this transition for people and business.” The plan promises to cut emissions while boosting economic growth and uses the language of fairness, vulnerable households, and public participation, suggesting a concern for inclusion. But to ensure that this transition truly includes, and benefits, everyone, it’s important to read it through an intersectional feminist lens.
Nnenna Onwuka, Wen’s Feminist Climate Justice Policy Campaigner, examined the new Climate Plan through this lens – asking whether it delivers not just carbon savings, but justice, wellbeing, and equality.
Assessing the CBGDP through an intersectional ecofeminist perspective highlights where it supports – or fails to support – a caring, equitable and sustainable future, where people and the planet can thrive. This analysis looks at how the plan addresses (or overlooks) Wen’s five key areas of work: Green Caring Economy, Nature for Health, Feminist Food Justice, Feminist Toxic-Free Future, and Feminist Climate Leadership – as well as the cross-cutting intersectional feminist themes that run through them all.
“The Carbon Budget and Growth Delivery Plan talks about fairness, but it must centre care, justice and equity to ensure the transition to net zero benefits all of us”
Green Caring Economy
Jobs, skills and economic resilience are a central aspect of the CBGDP. The plan makes the promise of “Equipping the workforce with the necessary skills to implement new technologies, upskilling and supporting jobs to support the delivery of sectoral ambitions. This contributes to building a resilient economy that can adapt and thrive in a low-carbon future.” It lists new Technical Excellence Colleges as well as green jobs in greenhouse-gas removals and tree-planting.
The focus of economic growth in the plan doesn’t factor in the gendered benefits of economic growth, through the fact that the green jobs mentioned are male-dominated. Moreover, investment in care and social infrastructure remain absent. The only mention of schools and hospitals is in the context of decarbonising their estate.
Care, health and social infrastructure are not treated as part of green growth, even though these sectors are inherently low-carbon and investment in them reduces inequality. Integrating care infrastructure into the plan would recognise that women are both disproportionately impacted by climate shocks, as well as often carry the burden of unpaid care work. Moreover, investing in a green caring economy has real benefits: gender-smart investment can deliver a “triple win”: climate resilience, gender equality, and economic inclusion, making the inclusion of this type of investment in the CBGDP all the more important.
“Care, health and social infrastructure are climate solutions too – yet they remain invisible in the government’s green growth agenda.”
Nature for Health
The CBGDP mentions the restoration of peatland and forestry as carbon removal methods. Reference is also made to the 2022 Green Infrastructure Framework and support for local authorities in embedding “nature, climate and health and wellbeing” into local plans.
However, while “health and wellbeing” are mentioned (once), they aren’t positioned as central aims. The plan doesn’t link access to nature to public or (mental) health benefits, nor does it recognise inequalities in access to nature.
“Health and wellbeing appear only at the margins of the plan — yet they should be at the heart of a truly sustainable transition.”
Feminist Food Justice
The mention of food in the CBGDP is entirely technical (livestock emissions, fertiliser use, soil carbon). The plan highlights the need to “support food system decarbonisation” and to balance net zero goals with maintaining food production.
However, there is no mention of food equity, nutrition, food security, local food systems or land use, let alone gendered roles in farming, food work or access to food.
- No mention of food equity or nutrition: This ignores the reality that climate change disproportionately affects food access for low-income, racialised, and migrant communities, especially women.
- No recognition of gendered roles in food systems: Women are central to food production, preparation, and distribution, yet their labour is often unpaid, invisible, and excluded from policy.
- No investment in local food systems: Community-led food initiatives (e.g. food co-ops, urban gardens) are low-carbon, resilient, and socially inclusive, but remain unsupported.
- No framing of food as care: Food is not just a commodity, it’s a form of care, culture, and connection. Ignoring this erases the emotional and relational labour that sustains communities.
“Food is not just a commodity — it’s care, culture and connection.”
Feminist Toxic-Free Future
The CBGDP recognises that decarbonisation (particularly through transport electrification) will improve air quality and reduce health burdens such as respiratory and heart disease. This recognition of the relationship between (air)pollution and public health is key to a toxic free future. However, the plan’s view of pollution has a narrow focus on transport emissions and doesn’t reference toxic chemicals, household pollution, or exposure to toxic chemicals through agriculture and everyday products.
From plastics to pesticides, everyday exposure to toxic chemicals can cause serious health problems such as endocrine disruption, respiratory issues, and chronic illnesses. And while toxic pollution harms everyone, it’s women and children, especially those in low-income, racialised and marginalised communities, who often face the worst exposure, from toxic chemicals in household products and menstrual products to poor air quality in our cities and homes. Without addressing these intersecting vulnerabilities, the plan runs the risk of reinforcing existing health inequities.
“Pollution isn’t just about cars and carbon — it’s about the toxic chemicals in our homes, bodies and everyday lives.”
Feminist Climate Leadership
The CBGDP has multiple references to participation, inclusion and diversity. It commits to publishing a Public Participation Plan in 2025 to ensure that climate policies are “responsive to people’s needs” and to “removing barriers to the uptake of lower carbon choices”. The plan also highlights initiatives like POWERful Women to promote gender diversity in the energy sector, and a Youth Guarantee ensuring access to jobs and training.
These are positive signals, but remain vague. Public participation is framed in a technocratic way as (consumer) behaviour change and technology adoption, rather than democratic engagement and shared decision-making. Diversity is not mentioned in the context of justice of power, nor is there mention of systemic barriers. An intersectional feminist approach shifts the focus from behaviour change to democratic engagement; diversity to justice and redistribution; inclusion to power-sharing and co-creation. These shifts are essential to ensure that participation is truly meaningful and centres the voices of the most impacted.
“Public participation in the Climate Plan is framed as behaviour change, not shared decision-making. A truly intersectional feminist approach would shift the focus from diversity to justice, inclusion to power-sharing, and ensure the voices of those most impacted are centred.”
Cross-cutting: Intersectional Feminist Lens
Across the CBGDP, there is a language of fairness. The plan refers to “equitable distribution,” “disproportionately impacted groups,” and “vulnerable households,” signalling a recognition of inequality. It also acknowledges fuel poverty and youth opportunity.
Friends of the Earth, who have developed a Fairness Test and have analysed the Carbon Budget and Growth Delivery plan against this test, concluded that the new plan is “a significant step-change from previous government plans” but that it should have gone further.
We see that the plan lacks intersectional depth:
- The plan recognises that certain groups are disproportionately impacted, but more work needs to be done to specify these groups and the structures underpinning these inequalities.
- The plan links energy efficiency to health and wellbeing (less damp/mould, warmer homes), but doesn’t mention the gendered impacts, race, disability, or intersectional vulnerabilities of unequal energy efficiency. Health and wellbeing shouldn’t appear only as by-products of energy efficiency, but as goals in their own right.
- Only one gender-specific reference appears (a women’s representation programme to make the energy sector more diverse and effective), and there are no mentions of race, disability, or migration status.
- Inclusion is primarily framed as affordability, access to new technologies, and benefits from the transition, rather than as power and democratic participation.
“A truly just climate plan must go beyond carbon targets to value wellbeing, equity and shared power.”
The UK Government’s Carbon Budget and Growth Delivery Plan marks a step towards climate ambition, but it overlooks the human realities of the transition. Embedding an intersectional feminist approach – one that values care, wellbeing, and justice – would make the plan not just greener, but fairer and more resilient for everyone.
NNENNA ONWUKA, FEMINIST CLIMATE JUSTICE POLICY CAMPAIGNER
