Conference Agenda

A global South approach to thinking about gender in a ‘just transition’ must consider both the imperative to achieve a low/zero carbon strategy to address climate crisis within a defined timeframe and the need to foster a developmental ‘structural transformation’ of economies (including sectoral shifts towards higher productivity activities) under the constraint of a low carbon transition while also addressing existing inequalities. To be just, a low carbon transition must involve not only a transformation in the structure of the economy (towards ‘green’ sectors), but also efforts to redress structural inequalities such as by gender or race. For countries that missed an industrial transformation via carbon intensive growth, the challenge is to find a pathway to a low carbon or ‘green’ structural transformation within the constraints of Paris Agreement commitments. How this can be done in a way that also transforms structures of inequality, including by gender, and what feminist economics can contribute to answering this question, is the concern of this panel.

Panellists will introduce issues, approaches and empirical strategies for addressing gender just transitions and ‘green’ or low carbon transformation in order to stimulate discussion on how feminist economics methods and approaches can be used to inform theory, empirical analysis and policy on ‘gender just’ green transformations in development contexts.

First, a framework of approaches towards a ‘gender just transition’ based on reviews of varied disciplinary and feminist approaches to low carbon transitions and empirical evidence of gendered impacts and outcomes is developed with the aim of identifying key principles/insights from feminist economics that can be used to assess or need to be considered in any model or policy approach towards a ‘gender just transition’ relevant to conditions in the global South. Second, starting from the premise that decarbonisation can be viewed as another ‘driver’ of structural transformation, we present a preliminary exploration of how a Lewisian dual economy model, with ‘green’ and ‘non-green’ sectors can help understand options for structural transformation under the constraint of low/zero carbon development, and ask what ‘feminist economics’ can contribute to understanding pathways towards a just and green transformation. Third, we present an empirical strategy and preliminary analysis from South Africa on the relationship between transitions in female paid and unpaid labour, now driven in part by the impact of climate change on agriculture, household socio-economic status, food production and food security in the context of climate change.