Unpacking Intersectional Approaches to Climate Change Adaptation

The paper argues that while good adaptation practices exist, an intersectional approach is necessary to address the intersecting structures of inequity—such as racism, ableism, and gender inequality—that exacerbate vulnerability to climate change. Drawing from a May 2024 knowledge co-production workshop, the authors introduce foundational principles (centering justice, equity, and power disruption) and process principles (positionality, context-specificity, and co-production). These are applied to the four stages of the UNFCCC iterative adaptation cycle: risk assessment, planning, implementation, and monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL).

• Vulnerability to climate change is disproportionately higher for people who are intersectionally marginalized, meaning they are disadvantaged by multiple, simultaneous structures of inequity including racism, ableism, ageism, gender inequality, and discrimination against the LGBTQIA+ community.
• While gender-responsive approaches are common in national adaptation plans (NAPs), using gender as the sole entry point for intersectionality can be limiting, as it may obscure the privilege of some women and ignore other more critical inequalities in specific contexts.
• The authors propose foundational principles for intersectional adaptation that require centering people in high vulnerability, framing adaptation as systemic to address structural vulnerabilities, positioning marginalized people as rights holders with agency, and intentionally disrupting harmful power structures in decision-making.
• Practical 'process principles' for intersectional adaptation include reflecting on one's own positionality and biases, ensuring processes are context-specific, designing inclusive and deliberate participation, nurturing iterative learning from failures, ensuring accessibility and free, prior, and informed consent, and prioritizing co-production over mere consultation.
• In the risk assessment phase, an intersectional approach requires participatory data collection, the use of disaggregated data combined with Indigenous and local knowledge, and analysis that specifically examines how intersecting categories of inequity exacerbate vulnerability.
• Intersectional planning requires the intentional engagement of equity organizations and the prioritization of adaptation actions that address structural inequities, which may involve weighting social vulnerability more heavily in multicriteria assessment processes.
• Implementation of intersectional adaptation requires allocating sufficient resources to the most at-risk communities, ensuring safeguarding for vulnerable people, and providing long-term, predictable funding to equity organizations to ensure sustainability.
• Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) must shift accountability from funders to the affected people, using disaggregated data and participatory methods to track whether intersectionally marginalized groups are actually benefiting and to capture unintended negative impacts.

APA

Dazé, A., & Christoffersen, A. (2025). Unpacking Intersectional Approaches to Climate Change Adaptation. International Institute for Sustainable Development. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/2025-05/intersectional-approaches-climate-change-adaptation.pdf

Chicago

Dazé, Angie, and Ashlee Christoffersen. Unpacking Intersectional Approaches to Climate Change Adaptation. International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2025. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/2025-05/intersectional-approaches-climate-change-adaptation.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Dazé |first1=Angie |last2=Christoffersen |first2=Ashlee |title=Unpacking Intersectional Approaches to Climate Change Adaptation |publisher=International Institute for Sustainable Development |date=May 2025 |url=https://www.iisd.org/system/files/2025-05/intersectional-approaches-climate-change-adaptation.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{daz2025unpacking, author = {Dazé, Angie and Christoffersen, Ashlee}, title = {{Unpacking Intersectional Approaches to Climate Change Adaptation}}, institution = {International Institute for Sustainable Development}, year = {2025}, month = may, url = {https://www.iisd.org/system/files/2025-05/intersectional-approaches-climate-change-adaptation.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }