1. Background and justification

The Rio Convention Secretariats, national governments, civil society organizations, and the UN System have worked since the 1992 Earth Summit to advance interlinked, gender-responsive implementation of the Conventions. They have collaborated to build coalitions, conducted research and analysis on the links between gender equality and improved environmental, economic, and social outcomes, and advanced the adoption of gender action plans under the three Conventions. To support and strengthen gender-responsive synergies across the Conventions, in 2024, UN Women launched a brief titled “Advancing Gender-Responsive Synergies Across the Rio Conventions” at UNFCCC COP29 and its corresponding full working paper at UNCCD COP16.

In this triple COP year, it is especially important to build on this initiative by convening stakeholders across the Conventions, building collective understanding of gender-responsive synergies, sharing strategies, and building partnerships to enhance cooperation and coherence across the Conventions. As an outcome of a 2025 workshop, the Rio Convention Secretariats agreed to hold three webinars on synergy issues, co-organized with UN-Women, including one led by the UNFCCC on the care-climate nexus. This virtual dialogue responds to that activity.

The climate-care nexus is highly relevant to the Belém Gender Action Plan (GAP). Adopted at COP30, this nine-year framework (2026–2034) explicitly integrates care work into an UNFCCC gender decision for the first time. The Climate and Care Initiative (CCI) and UN Women’s research, financing, and grassroots data could serve as an operational engine that bridges theoretical climate justice and the official mandates of the Belém GAP, as well as other actions under the UNCCD and the CBD.

Launched in 2022, the CCI seeks to connect these two agendas that have historically been addressed separately: climate change and care. The CCI is led by the AVINA Foundation, OXFAM Canada, UNRISD, the National University of San Martin (UNSAM), and the University of Witwatersrand (Wits University), in collaboration with the Global Alliance for Care and with support from Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Værekraft Foundation. 

The CCI, the first action-research program focused on this agenda in the Global South, has documented, through participatory research in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Sub-Saharan Africa, how climate change interacts with care. At the same time, its evidence shows that care work builds resilience and supports adaptation to climate change, thus constituting climate infrastructure. This demonstrates that integrating care into Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), national adaptation plans, long-term low-emission development strategies, and climate finance frameworks is not only a measure of gender justice but also a key condition for strengthening resilience and accelerating a just transition.

Also the CCI has advanced practical guidance on integrating care into climate finance. Through research and knowledge products, including Centering Care in Climate Finance by Mariama Williams, the initiative identifies entry points for embedding care considerations across global climate finance mechanisms, including the Green Climate Fund (GCF), the Adaptation Fund (AF), and the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD). Its work advances the recognition of care as essential social infrastructure and provides evidence and recommendations on how climate finance can support the recognition, reduction and redistribution of unpaid care work while strengthening resilience, adaptation and just transition outcomes.

Likewise The CCI has contributed to positioning care as a core component of just transitions, helping shift the conversation beyond employment transitions in carbon-intensive sectors toward a broader understanding of the social foundations required for resilient and inclusive economies. Through its research, convenings and policy engagement, the initiative demonstrates that investing in, valuing and redistributing care is essential to achieving equitable and gender-responsive transition pathways.

In line with its triple mandate, UN Women is advancing research, coordination and programmatic interventions to continue building the evidence on the interlinkages between climate change, environmental degradation and care, building on its pioneering work launched in 2023 on The climate–care nexus: Addressing the linkages between climate change and women’s and girls’ unpaid care, domestic, and communal work.

Guided by its Climate and Environment Strategy and its (forthcoming) Guidance Note on Care, Climate and a Just Transition, UN Women is supporting governments, civil society organizations, development partners and other practitioners working across care, climate, environmental and just transition agendas by providing a practical framework for understanding the care–climate nexus and identifying opportunities for action across policy, programming, coordination, advocacy and financing. 

Additionally, it is advancing gender-responsive just transitions to low-carbon economies, aligned with the Paris Agreement, with decent work, care and social protection at the centre through its Global Programming Framework on Gender-responsive Climate Action and Green/Blue Economies building on its work in 2024 on A Gender-Responsive Just Transition for People and Planet.

2. Objective

This virtual dialogue responds to the Rio Conventions' Secretariat's decision to host a webinar on the care-climate nexus, led by the UNFCCC in partnership with allies. The dialogue aims to generate knowledge, deepen understanding of the interdependence between climate change and national care systems, and identify actionable opportunities to integrate care into the implementation of the Rio Conventions’ mandates, Gender Action Plans, and national implementation efforts.

3. Methodology

The virtual dialogue is designed for gender and environmental experts who can position care as a strategic component of more inclusive, equitable, and evidence-based climate policies and actions at the national and international levels. It aims to translate the theoretical alignment between climate change and care into operational practice. By sharing diverse approaches, data, and results, participants will learn to use grassroots data, localized research, and targeted financing.

In line with the UNFCCC commitment to advancing gender-responsive synergies across the Rio Conventions, the dialogue will convene various organizations, including the Rio Convention Secretariats, Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), the Kaschak Institute, and the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women).

The target is to reach 40 to 50 participants, including but not limited to UNFCCC national gender and climate change focal points, and gender and environmental experts under the UNCCD and the CBD. Given time zones, the dialogue may be replicated to cover as many time zones as possible.