At Wen, we know that climate change is not just an environmental issue. It is a matter of health, equity and justice and it is experienced unequally.
As we launch our new Why Women and Climate briefing, we are honoured to share this foreword from our Ambassador, Caroline Lucas. Her words speak to the urgency of this moment and the importance of centring women, particularly those most impacted by injustice, in building climate solutions that are fair, inclusive and lasting.
Caroline Lucas – Wen Ambassador and former leader of the Green Party of England and Wales; Member of Parliament for Brighton Pavilion (2010-2024) and Professor of Practice in Environmental Sustainability, University of Sussex.
“Wen (Women’s Environmental Network) has never treated climate change as a siloed environmental issue. For nearly four decades, Wen has shown that if we want climate solutions that truly work, we must confront inequality, value care, and centre the leadership of racialised and marginalised women. This report is not just an analysis, it is a roadmap for building climate policy that is fairer, braver and rooted in justice.” – Caroline Lucas, 2026
Climate change is often described in universal terms: rising temperatures, extreme weather, nature loss. But its impacts are never experienced equally. They fall hardest on those already navigating injustice. And as this powerful briefing makes clear, climate change is not gender-neutral.
For decades, Wen (Women’s Environmental Network) has been making the case that environmental harm, gender inequality, health injustice and economic marginalisation are deeply interconnected.
Long before “feminist climate justice” became part of mainstream discourse, Wen was articulating, and acting on, the understanding that climate policy must confront structural inequality if it is to be effective. This means taking a holistic, intersectional approach, recognising that environmental harm is inseparable from racial and social injustice, and that solutions must address the overlapping systems that shape people’s lives. It also means centring women, particularly racialised and marginalised women, not simply as those most affected, but as leaders, organisers and experts whose knowledge and experience are essential to building just and lasting climate solutions.
This briefing is both timely and necessary. At a moment when climate commitments risk being diluted and when equality language can too easily become rhetorical, Wen brings us back to first principles. Climate impacts intersect with gendered inequalities in housing, income, care, health, safety and political power. Ignoring these realities does not make climate policy neutral, it makes it unjust.
The climate and nature crises demand systemic change. That change will only succeed if it is rooted in justice.
This briefing is an essential contribution to the debate. I hope it ensures that everyone moves beyond gender-neutral approaches and embraces the bold, intersectional feminist action that this moment requires
Read the full Why Women and Climate briefing
Read the new blog: Why Climate Change is not Gender Neutral
