There is a growing level of interest in gender inclusivity in discussions on climate change and energy transition. However, the majority of these discussions remain stuck in a market-based approach to decarbonisation that insists on neoliberal energy policies that privatise profits, socialise losses, and ultimately slows the transition to renewables and other forms of low-carbon energy. Gender inclusivity into oppressive frameworks will never lead to the transformation needed to change the material conditions of women workers around the world. As unions are developing a public pathway framework, discussions are also taking place to articulate that framework as a feminist approach to a just energy transition.
In June 2024, TUED held its first “Women's Leadership Project for a Public Pathway” meeting with women trade union leaders who have been actively engaged with the TUED network over the last 12 years.
A month later, the TUED South Asia-Pacific Regional Policy Meeting in Bali, Indonesia, highlighted women’s leadership and raised several gender issues. The regional meeting reflected the understanding that the Public Pathway is feminist, working class and internationalist.
Rather than having a single “women’s” session, the Bali meeting integrated women’s sessions throughout the program, including a Women’s Caucus space. From the multiple discussions emerged the underlying thesis that a feminist approach to a just energy transition is the public pathway as it deals with both the question of the ownership of energy and the need for democratic control of the sector. How women are centred in this emerging discourse has yet to be articulated, however, and the Bali meeting provided an opportunity to begin these much-needed discussions.
A few of the key feminist priorities for a public pathway raised included:
Smritee Lama, Secretary of Foreign Affairs at the General Federation of Nepalese Trade Unions (GEFONT), was among the participants of the Women’s Caucus at the TUED South regional meeting. She commented, “We need more spaces like this, to think critically about women’s issues in the energy transition with sisters from other unions. We invite this initiative to grow and for us to work across the Global South trade unions to organise our demands.”
The Women’s Caucus discussed labour movement priorities in a more comradely, informal setting, resulting in the exchange of experiences of women ranging from workplace violence to the development of methods for building true solidarity with their male comrades. “Often our most basic needs are excluded from consideration, including, for example, that women bus drivers need bathrooms. This is a worker’s issue as much as it is a quality of public transportation issue,” expressed Imedla, the Treasurer of the Indonesian transport union, Serikat Pekerja Transportasi Jakarta (SPTJ).
When asked about a feminist approach to the Public Pathway, Lama explained, “As class organisations, trade unions are primarily concerned with a working-class analysis of women’s issues. Therefore, it is refreshing to see TUED South centre an international and feminist approach to the energy transition. Neoliberalism has failed women around the world. An alternative approach must go beyond merely “including” women in the discussions – we must address the core issues that reproduce oppression of working-class women in the energy transition. This includes workplace rights, women’s political education, public ownership of energy as a common good, care work as critical low-carbon labour that must be properly remunerated and formalised, public infrastructure that allows rights to be exercised in public education, public healthcare, etc. For example, affordable and robust public transportation to get to school or work. We are saying that the privatisation of our lives has been detrimental to girls’ and women’s rights in such a way that we must use this Just Transition opening to fight back and reclaim the public services, including energy, that allow us to exercise our rights.”
Rehana Riyawala, Executive Secretary and Vice President of Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA) of India said, “Poor women spend nearly 40% of their income on energy. The resulting pressure on the family and community economy to cut down on energy costs imposes additional time-intensive labour on girls and women.”
Reflecting on the Women’s Leadership Project for a Public Pathway, TUED’s Irene HongPing Shen explained, “We’re trying to create a space where women can learn about and collectively discuss and develop a decarbonization plan from a feminist perspective. Too often, women are pushed into embracing the dominant neoliberal narrative for the energy transition or are expected to default into defending community energy under a market-based framework. Both options work against transformative change and do not reflect a just energy transition. And in fact, they offer very little in terms of generating the amount of low-carbon energy needed around the world to reach climate targets. While decentralised energy will certainly play a role in the global energy transition, it must be from a public pathway framework with coordinated planning to align with local priorities of marginalised communities, feminist struggles and advance the rights of women workers at its core.”
Shen presented an internationalist and feminist public pathway approach to the Just Transition at the Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) event: Building a Feminist Energy System. You can view the event recording here.
Also contributing to the development of a feminist public pathway is Project Coordinator Lavinia Steinfort at the Transnational Institute (TNI), TUED’s long-time ally in the fight for public ownership of energy. Steinfort has written about a feminist energy transition and in her most recent piece, Public Ownership and Energy Democracy: Struggles for a Feminist Transition, she points to the importance and potential of democratised energy in developing a feminist platform:
“ … [we can] argue for transforming these [energy] utilities into a democratic undertaking that can uphold the right to sustainable energy whilst following the lead of affected communities. This surely requires equitable and participatory governance with poor, marginalised women, among others, in the driving seat. Such a feminist energy model may actually enable societies to prioritise essential, social reproductive energy use - whether it is to keep hospitals, schools, water provision and public transport running, or power and make visible all the care, cooking and cleaning work that is still predominantly done by women.”
To continue developing the work of a feminist public pathway approach to the energy transition, TUED plans to run a 6-8 week workshop series in 2025 for women trade unionists focused on the technical and political aspects of energy and the public pathway. Stay tuned for more information!
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The paper begins by highlighting a critical concern, that the majority of current efforts geared at Just Transition are gender-neutral, and therefore inadvertently biassed against women. In response, it offers an alternative approach: a gender-transformative vision that acknowledges the disproportionate impacts of climate change on many women workers. Finally, the paper proposes seven types of activities trade union bodies and solidarity organisation partners could undertake to advance efforts towards a gender-equitable Just Transition. Read here.
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