Guidance Document: Towards Gender-Transformative Action on Super Pollutants

The purpose of this guidance document is to analyze gender considerations, challenges, and opportunities in the super pollutants field, in order to provide multilateral institutions, policymakers, and civil society with a shared foundation for discussion and action.

Towards Gender-Transformative Action on Super Pollutants: Guidance for policymakers and civil society (CCAC, prepared by Oxfam America, 2025) is a practical roadmap for embedding gender-transformative approaches into efforts to cut short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs)—methane, black carbon, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), and tropospheric ozone—across six source sectors: agriculture, cooling, fossil fuels, household energy, transport, and waste. It frames SLCP mitigation as an “emergency brake” for near-term climate and clean-air benefits, while warning that ignoring gender inequality weakens results and can exacerbate harms. The guide was requested by the CCAC Board to inform funding and program design and to implement the CCAC Gender Strategy launched at COP27.

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The framework chapter defines super pollutants, summarizes why rapid mitigation matters (short atmospheric lifetimes and high near-term warming impact), and positions SLCP action as an opportunity to advance development and equality. It then lays out what gender-transformative means using the Gender Integration Continuum (from gender-unaware → aware → sensitive → transformative) and Oxfam’s Transformative Leadership for Women’s Rights (TLWR) lens that looks at power across formal/informal and systemic/individual domains. These tools guide readers beyond “do no harm” into shifting norms, rules, and decision-making power.

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Methodology: the authors review the last-decade literature (peer-reviewed and gray) plus six expert interviews; they organize evidence around exposure, vulnerability, access to resources, and decision-making differences by gender. They note significant data gaps (especially for gender minorities and non-English sources) and the need for sex- and gender-disaggregated evidence.

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Sector findings (who is affected, where the levers are)

Agriculture. SLCPs include methane from rice and livestock, and black carbon from open burning of residues. Women are critical to agri-food systems but often have less access to land, finance, markets, training, and water governance, and carry labor-intensive tasks (e.g., transplanting). Mitigation options—Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD), Direct-Seeded Rice (DSR), System of Rice Intensification (SRI)—can cut methane while reducing drudgery and costs when delivered with capacity building and land-rights reforms; residue alternatives (e.g., biochar) reduce burning but must avoid shifting unpaid work to women.

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Cooling. Rising demand for refrigeration/AC increases HFCs unless technology and policy shift. Access gaps expose women and gender minorities (often in informal or outdoor work) to extreme heat with pregnancy risks; inefficient appliances raise bills. Women are under-represented in the cooling workforce (~6%), so green-cooling transitions risk replicating exclusion unless training, anti-discrimination, and targeted subsidies are built in.

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Fossil fuels. Oil/gas/coal activities emit methane (venting/leaks), black carbon (flaring/combustion). Communities near extraction face chronic illness, water/food contamination, and women shoulder added care burdens; studies link exposure to adverse maternal outcomes. Transient male workforces can raise gender-based violence risks. Benefit-sharing and land negotiations often exclude women, entrenching economic dependence; women are clustered in lower-paid roles and still face legal/policy barriers in some countries. The guidance calls for gender impact assessments, time-bound workforce goals, gender-disaggregated data (e.g., via EITI 2023 provisions), and removal of discriminatory laws.

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Household energy. Responsible for ~half of anthropogenic black carbon. Reliance on biomass/kerosene/coal exposes cooks—predominantly women in many settings—to PM and BC, raising respiratory/cardiovascular risks and maternal-fetal harms; fuel collection consumes time and can involve safety risks. Solutions: clean cooking transitions with financing, women-led energy cooperatives, behavior-change and norm-shifting campaigns that also engage men.

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Transport. A major black carbon source; TRAP exposure links to hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and adverse birth outcomes. Women often depend more on public transport, face safety/harassment concerns and trip-chaining tied to care roles, and remain under-represented in the sector workforce. The guide points to soot-free buses, clean fuels, and gender-inclusive planning, backed by toolkits (ITF, GET-IT), KPI frameworks, and workforce policies (equal pay, parental leave, facilities).

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Waste. Methane from landfills and black carbon from open burning intersect with informal work dominated by low-income women, who often lack PPE, healthcare, and legal protection. Landfill gas projects can inadvertently displace livelihoods if not participatory. Recommendations include gender-disaggregated data, protections and services for informal workers, women-led cooperatives, equitable formal-sector entry, and investment in composting/digestion with gender-aware outreach.

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A helpful one-page visual—the “Gender Inequality and the Super Pollutant Risk Cycle” on p. 23—summarizes how discrimination (land rights, labor protections, access to finance/tech, mobility/safety, formal employment) feeds into heightened exposure and harms from SLCPs across the six sectors, creating a feedback loop that compounds inequities.

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Cross-cutting recommendations

The guide urges donors and governments to earmark funding for gender-transformative SLCP work (only ~2.4% of climate ODA currently prioritizes gender), require gender-disaggregated data and gender/power analysis in program design, include explicit gender targets in NDCs, Methane Action Plans and clean air strategies, and adopt feminist MEAL approaches to capture qualitative, non-linear change. It emphasizes narrative shifts that recognize women and gender-diverse people as leaders and innovators, not just vulnerable groups.

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Bottom line: To make SLCP mitigation effective and just, programs must pair technical measures (AWD/SRI, soot-free buses, HFC phase-down, leak detection and repair, clean cooking, waste methane capture) with transformations in power: women’s land rights, access to finance/tech, safety and mobility, workforce inclusion, and equal decision-making from local cooperatives to national policy tables.

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Keywords from the report

short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs); methane; black carbon; HFCs; tropospheric ozone; gender-transformative; Gender Integration Continuum; Transformative Leadership for Women’s Rights; exposure/vulnerability/resources/decision-making; clean cooking; AWD/DSR/SRI; cooling workforce; flaring/leaks; TRAP; informal waste sector; gender-disaggregated data; feminist MEAL; NDCs/Methane Action Plans.