No Implementation without Equality

Brazil's COP30 Presidency has advanced the concept of a “two-tier” climate multilateralism: a first tier grounded in consensus-based UNFCCC negotiations, which provide universality, legitimacy, and normative direction; and a second tier focused on implementation. This includes accelerating delivery of what has already been agreed, through coalitions, finance mobilization and institutional innovation that do not require the same unanimity as formal negotiations.

This framing, developed in Plataforma CIPÓ’s policy brief “Two-Tier Climate Multilateralism: The Legacy of COP30”, argues that implementation-oriented pathways such as the Action Agenda offer a faster, more flexible complement to the negotiations track. COP31 promises to continue this narrative by framing itself as a COP “that turns commitments into policy, and vision into implementation”.

This session, hosted at New York Climate Week in the lead up to COP 31 - will explore how, in order to achieve effective implementation, gender-responsive climate data, finance and policy are not a peripheral add-on, but a precondition for it. Importantly, it will demonstrate through the presentation of GWL Voices’ new Spotlight report on Women in Global Climate and Environmental Leadership, that without the full and equal participation of women in global climate decision-making, the “second tier” of implementation will fall short of making real progress. 

Women’s role in international climate governance is a strategic lever for implementation. As GWL Voices’ new Spotlight report shows, only one fourth of all climate COP Presidents have been women since 1992, and the heads of seven of the most influential global climate and environmental bodies (UNFCCC, CBD, UNCCD, GEF, GCF, IPCC, UNEP) have only been led by women in 30% of the time. The report is evidence of women’s continued underrepresentation in climate leadership, and the importance of fostering a new generation of gender-equal climate leadership, especially from under-represented regions in the Global South. 

This 2026 NYCW event is a follow-up to the 2025 Climate Week NYC panel “The Road to Environmental Justice: Financing Gender Equality and Women's Rights,” co-hosted by GWL Voices, Plataforma CIPÓ and the Baha’i International Community by building on and updating that conversation in light of the GWL Voices Spotlight report, COP30 outcomes - including the adoption of the landmark Belém Gender Action Plan, the evolving concept of two-tier climate multilateralism, and the continued backlash against women’s rights and gender equality.

For more information, please visit www.gwlvoices.org