Didja Djibrillah sits alone in a booth at COP23, the annual Conference of the Parties (COP23), a yearly meeting for member states of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to address global progress in fighting climate change. A video plays, to an empty room, about the effects of climate change on her nomadic community. “Each day begins at 5 am to grind couscous in 50-degree [Celsius] heat,” she explains to VICE Impact. There are no grocery stores, and it’s the women’s role to search for food and water. Climate change makes their journeys longer.

The United Nations’ new Gender Action Plan (GAP), finalized by UNFCCC member states at COP23, aims to recognize the adverse effects of climate change on women, like Didja. It also recognizes they’re key to their communities’ long-and-short-term survival, and aims to ensure disenfranchised women can help spearhead solutions - both at global policy making and local grassroots levels. Based on current trends, women won’t have equal representation in government until 2134. In the UNFCCC, comprised of 197 different nations, gender equality will not be reached until 2040 - and that number is declining.

Yannick Glemarec, Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Executive Director for Policy and Programme for UN Women, tells VICE Impact, “What is becoming extremely powerful is the recognition that women are not only a vulnerable group, but they’re also agents of change. We have basically one of the most powerful solutions to address climate change at scale.”

What is becoming extremely powerful is the recognition that women are not only a vulnerable group, but they’re also agents of change.

What makes this GAP different is it gives women’s organizations an opportunity to make sure UNFCCC decisions are implemented through it’s five key themes which, unlike previous years, will be measured and tracked by women’s groups at COP25 in 2019.

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These themes are designed to ensure grassroots women and girls are key decision-makers both globally and locally; to improve gender-responsive climate policy at the national level; to gain a greater understanding of how women are affected by climate change; and to examine how climate finance is designed and effectively responds to women’s needs.