Sustain. Dev. http://go.nature.com/2ncYtZS (2018)

Recent international agreements and treaties on environmental issues state that climate change, disaster recovery and sustainable development affect all nations and peoples, but also mention specific groups that may be affected more acutely. Women have become a special focus due to widespread gender inequality in power and resources, as well as bearing a disproportionate brunt of impacts from environmental events.

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Godwell Nhamo and colleagues at the University of South Africa audited the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, the Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction, and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development for references to the challenges and needs of women around the world. Using critical discourse analysis to examine the text of the agreements with regards to women and gender issues, the authors found that Agenda 2030 (which incorporates the Sustainable Development Goals) referenced twenty major themes, from violence against women to inclusion in disaster reduction to equality in inheritance and property. Meanwhile, the Sendai Framework referenced eleven of these themes (such as involvement in leadership and management), but the Paris Agreement only four. The authors note that in addition to an SDG devoted specifically to women, seven other SDGs also explicitly talk about impacts on women, and thus make the 2030 Agenda the most explicit framework for mainstreaming women’s issues in global development.