A Global Analysis of the Environmental Cost of Gender Inequality

Social vulnerability frequently accompanies environmental threats. Gender inequality undermines altruistic values, restricts women’s agency in environmental action, and constrains the capacity for innovation, thereby exacerbating vulnerability to climate change. Yet the gender perspective remains undervalued in environmental studies and few studies explore the extent to which the gendered effects observed at the micro level contribute to environmental outcomes globally. The current research advances a deeper understanding of the gender-environment nexus by assessing the impact of gender inequality on carbon emissions and the adoption of renewable energy at the national level. Cross-national panel analyses of data from 106 countries spanning from the 1990–2020 period suggest that gender inequality has increased carbon emissions and undermined low-carbon energy transition, and there are significant regional and temporal variations. The findings highlight the crucial need to understand human-nature relations in the context of human-human relations, and the importance of a more integrated approach to sustainable development that simultaneously considers social equity and climate change mitigation.