WCC is mobilising a movement of women, in all our diversity, empowered to promote women’s leadership, policy priorities and solutions for action on climate change. We are bringing head, heart and hands to create change from the historically dominant narrative of adversarial ‘power over’ towards women-led Earth-centred power sharing and collaborative approaches to create an inclusive, fair and secure future for life on Earth. We promote gender equality and women’s leadership as central to a just transition, noting the increasing evidence that climate change is not gender neutral and adds to existing inequality.
After four years of volunteer work we are poised as a leading Australian voice at the interface of gender equality and climate action. Our Charter presents a women-centred vision for actions to secure the climate and promote long-term human and planetary wellbeing. Our leadership has been recognised internationally and we are engaged in a global movement bringing gender equality to the centre of climate action at the UN COPs.
To capitalise on this opportunity and build momentum towards a possible Australian-Pacific COP in 2026, we need to build a sustainable WCC that nurtures women and values their skills and contributions, while securing resources and capacity for WCC core administration and activities. To scale up this capacity we need to secure sound leadership and streamlined administration through paid executive and administrative roles.
1. WCC is empowering women to explore their own vision, and to build solidarity, confidence and a ‘voice’ that reflects our human rights and numbers in the population, with gender equality recognised as a vital component of climate action.
2. WCC listens deeply across different parties, sectors and communities to build collaborations with like-minded and ‘unlikely’ allies across different perspectives, generations and cultural experiences. We advocate for well-designed, participatory processes for multistakeholder dialogue to create and implement united national plans.
3. WCC elevates care and nurture of life to the centre of all decision-making, through deep respect for First Nations knowledge and worldview, advocating for long-term, intergenerational considerations and valuing of all life on Earth, promoting qualities of the heart (eg care, kindness, compassion, empathy) as the basis for true strength, and supporting the arts as a key agent for change.
In this way WCC is creating collective momentum for strong, just and compassionate action on climate, based on human rights, intergenerational fairness and care for the planet. Success will be accompanied by increased representation and influence of women on the policy agenda for climate action, multipartisan collaboration across political perspectives, and longer-term time horizons to protect future human generations and all Earth life.
We will measure our outcomes through:
We share news of initiatives and outcomes with members and the broader community thought regular e-news, social media and other media articles.
Funding for this project will assist the development of an analytic framework for further measurement of impact and refinement of activities to amplify impacts.
The Women’s Climate Congress (WCC) is an Australian not-for-profit organisation working to promote nonpartisan women’s participation, leadership and priorities for action on climate change, mindful of future generations and the natural world. We promote deep listening and collaboration across different political, business and community perspectives. Since its formation in January 2020, WCC has engaged with thousands of women from all parts of Australia and overseas, across political parties and from all walks of life.
By working together across diverse interests and ways of knowing and following scientific advice we will be better prepared for the existential challenges we face. To this end, our work is guided by our WCC Charter for Change, which has been created from conversations with many 100s women. We offer the Charter to government, business, non-government organisations, communities and individuals as a holistic vision and practical response to human-induced climate change and environmental destruction.
