Supporting communities to adapt to climate change by strengthening local solutions, reducing inequality, and advancing resilience — especially for women and girls.
Typhoons ravage countries across Asia. Hurricanes devastate communities in the Caribbean. Heatwaves and wildfires scorch North America and Europe. Drought grips parts of Africa and the Middle East. Floods overwhelm cities across South America.
Climate change is everywhere. It affects everyone and everything.
It shapes how we grow food, earn a living, travel, and build our homes. In many places, it shapes whether people can survive at all.
But climate change is not only destructive. It is also deeply unfair. Its impacts fall first and hardest on the people least responsible for the crisis, especially women and girls. Nearly half of the world’s population, more than 3 billion people, live in places highly exposed to climate risks.
These are the same communities that have contributed the least to climate change.
This injustice shapes CARE's approach. Climate considerations run through all our work, from emergency response to health, livelihoods, and long-term development. They also strengthen our commitment to put women and girls at the center of climate solutions. Climate justice and gender equality must move forward together.
Our goal: Support 25 million poor and marginalized people, especially women and girls, to adapt and become more resilient to climate change.
Why climate change impacts women and girls the most
Climate change deepens existing inequalities.
Farmers lose their harvests as weather patterns shift. People living in fragile homes are often the first to lose everything after storms or landslides. Families without savings are forced to rebuild from nothing after disasters.
By 2030, climate change could push more than 130 million people into poverty. It is already a major driver of crises worldwide and increasingly shapes all areas of CARE’s work.
Because women and girls face greater risks even before disasters strike, they are often hit hardest when climate shocks occur. Climate change intensifies hunger, poverty, violence, and harmful gender norms. We see this across contexts:
- Bangladesh: Child marriage increased by more than 50% during a 30-day heatwave.
- Somaliland: During a severe drought, girls spent up to seven hours a day searching for water instead of attending school.
- Globally: 84.2 million more women and girls than men and boys are food insecure, in part due to climate change impacts.
The conclusion is clear: addressing climate change also means advancing gender equality.
What CARE and partners do to address climate change
CARE and our local partners work with communities, especially women and girls, to build resilience and address the root causes of climate change. We lead and coordinate climate action across CARE in three key ways:
Strengthening community resilience
- CARE integrates climate risk into all programs, working with communities to adapt now and prepare for future shocks. This includes supporting climate-smart farming, helping families build more disaster-resistant homes, and developing nature-based solutions such as mangrove restoration in Bangladesh to protect coastlines and support women's livelihoods.
Our Climate Resilience Marker helps assess climate risk and strengthen resilience consistently across CARE’s work.
Influencing policies and amplifying voices
- Supporting communities to adapt to climate impacts is only part of the solution. Addressing the climate crisis also requires tackling its root causes. CARE advocates for policies that reduce global warming and protect people facing the worst impacts. Wealthier countries and major polluters must act faster and more decisively. We engage with decision-makers in global forums, including the annual UN climate negotiations. Learn more here.
Building knowledge and skills
- Knowledge is essential for effective climate action. CARE shares learning across our organization and with partners working to address the causes and consequences of climate change. This is why we created the CARE Climate and Resilience Academy, an online learning platform that supports humanitarian and development practitioners to integrate climate adaptation into programs, policies, and everyday decision-making. Learn more here.
Climate and Environment Charter for Humanitarian Organizations
CARE International, represented by our Climate Justice Center (CJC), is a signatory to the Climate and Environment Charter and sits on the board of the Climate Charter. Together with other organizations, we work to strengthen climate commitments across the humanitarian sector and drive collective action.
The CARE Climate Justice Center is an initiative powered by CARE Denmark, CARE France, CARE Germany, CARE Netherlands, and CARE International UK. The CJC leads and coordinates the integration of climate justice and resilience across CARE’s humanitarian and development work.
