EU Climate Policy-Making in Times of Crisis: Is There Room for Gender?

EU climate policy-making in times of crisis: Is there room for gender?

The article explores the link between climate policy making and gender within the EU. EU is a leading actor in climate politics although the economic crisis has revealed internal disputes as well as lower expectations about the role of the EU as a regional and global force in climate policy-making.  Nevertheless EU is still a productive lawmaker developing climate change strategies within a careful, path-dependent institutional environment. In this article we claim that gender needs to be visible in EU climate policy-making in order for the Union to fulfill its role as a leader in climate politics in today´s harsh economic climate. Exposure and vulnerability to climate change impacts as well as responsibility for emissions and participation in decision-making in climate politics differ due to gender (Dankelman 2010; MacGregor 2010). Consequently we explore whether gender is a visible factor in climate policy-making within the EU. The starting point is in our previous research on the effects of equal descriptive representation of men and women in Scandinavian climate policy-making. Surprisingly, equal descriptive representation did not result in gendered climate policies in Scandinavia and we concluded that ‘adding women and stirring’ did not suffice to make gender visible in climate policy-making. This article moves beyond the state level and explores the substantive impacts of equal (or unequal) descriptive representation of women and men involved in EU climate policy-making and the visibility and recognition of gender in EU climate policy.