For three decades, the world has gathered under the banner of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), each conference a waypoint in the slow march toward collective action. This year, the march includes voices long overlooked, particularly women at the frontlines of climate impacts, whose leadership is increasingly recognized as essential to lasting change.
In November 2025, that march will reach Belém, Brazil, where international leaders will gather for the 30th annual meeting of the UN climate conference, or Conference of the Parties (COP30). The setting itself is charged with symbolism: a city on the edge of the Amazon, a region of the world deeply impacted by disaster risks, where both the environment and the women who sustain local communities face mounting pressures. COP30 is the moment when words must turn into deeds, and when policymakers decide on meaningful action to meet these challenges.
At the same time, COP30 brings forward an equally urgent theme: the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda, supported by partners such as Our Secure Future (OSF). The integration of WPS with climate policy acknowledges that meaningful results cannot be achieved without women’s leadership, peacebuilding, and participation at every level of decision-making.
From Pledges to Proof
The “Conference of the Parties,” known as COP, has long been the annual arena for climate politics. Since the UNFCCC’s creation in 1992, it has pulled nearly every nation into one fragile pact. Over time, that pact yielded several milestones: the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, which bound developed countries to emission targets; and the 2015 Paris Agreement, which demanded that all nations define their own Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs, to curb greenhouse gases.
But COP30 marks a new chapter. Unlike earlier conferences, Belém’s agenda shifts from negotiation to implementation, intent on measuring progress, ensuring accountability, and testing the durability of agreements made in Paris. As the UN outlines, this conference must align national efforts with the 1.5°C threshold, strengthen resilience, and address twin crises: environmental disasters and biodiversity loss.
The host nation, Brazil, intends to incorporate the surroundings of the Amazon and the specific challenges the region faces into the summit. The agenda elevates forest protection, renewable expansion, and Indigenous leadership as core pillars.
Women’s Participation in the Climate Equation
Even as global pledges multiply, the money to fulfill them falters. The finance goal of $1.3 trillion annually by 2035 remains beyond reach. Moreover, the world’s poorest nations, least responsible for emissions, endure the gravest consequences. Small island states, drought-hit farmers, and displaced families carry the weight of decisions made in distant capitals.
It is here that COP30 promises a more comprehensive conversation. Its Action Agenda describes the transition as “just and inclusive,” a reminder that progress measured in megawatts and tons of CO₂ means little if it overlooks the people living through the crisis. Women, in particular, stand at this intersection of vulnerability and strength. Though women make up less than a third of COP delegates, they bear the brunt of food insecurity, water scarcity, and disaster recovery. Research cited by the UN and the Women’s Environment and Development Organization shows that when women shape climate policies, outcomes become not only fairer but more enduring.
In Belém, women’s participation will no longer be a side note. The Brazilian presidency, in coordination with the Ministry of Women, will unveil a Protocol for Supporting Women in Climate Emergencies, a commitment born from recognition that resilience begins at the grassroots. Civil society coalitions have fought for years for this visibility, insisting that women’s leadership is crucial to ensuring responsive decision-making. COP30’s forthcoming Action Plan is expected to codify this into measurable, accountable targets: placing women at the core of policy leadership, rather than its periphery.
Where Climate Meets Security
As delegates debate emissions and energy transitions, a different yet interwoven discussion will surface, the intersection of climate, peace, and security. The Women, Peace and Security agenda, established by UN Security Council Resolution 1325, emphasizes women’s participation and leadership in building peace. But until recently, climate concerns rarely entered that equation.
At COP30, this alignment on climate policy and women’s leadership finds new traction. As the conference acknowledges women as “protagonists of solutions rather than victims of crisis,” it mirrors OSF’s mission: empowering those most affected to lead response and recovery. This pursuit is reflected in the WPS National Action Plan (NAP) Academy, an initiative of Our Secure Future that supports countries in their development of National Action Plans on WPS. These policies can serve as roadmaps in integrating WPS into climate considerations on a country-specific level. For example, Trinidad and Tobago, one of the participating countries in OSF’s WPS NAP Academy and a small island developing state, has incorporated climate considerations into the design and implementation framework of its first WPS National Action Plan.
Integrating WPS with climate policy ensures peace-sensitive policy implementation that is responsive to the needs of women, key to COP30’s theme on just and inclusive climate action. The result is a convergence: climate policy that is no longer confined to emissions charts, but recognized as a pillar of global peace and human security.
Belém’s Promise
If COP29 in Baku was dubbed the “Finance COP,” then COP30 carries the heavier mantle, the “Delivery COP.” The transition from agreement to action demands transparency, measurable outcomes, and stamina. Workshops leading up to the conference have already mapped new frameworks to integrate sex-disaggregated data, disaster recovery systems, and ecosystem protection.
Belém’s significance extends beyond negotiation halls. The test for COP30 is whether this moment can redefine what global unity means for climate policy. If COP30 succeeds, it will offer pathways to turn policy commitments into concrete action and ensure that the perspectives of those facing the direct impacts of environmental disasters are integrated into decision-making.
