Feminist Climate Leadership from Women Deliver to COP31

Women Deliver 2026 in Melbourne did not just feel like a conference. It felt like a refugia. Within the climate space specifically, conversations moved beyond abstract commitments and into demands of accountability. Feminists, youth leaders, Indigenous peoples, and civil society strategized around Belém Gender Action Plan, the Global Goal on Adaptation, Action for Climate Empowerment, climate finance, the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinion on climate obligations, and the push for a Global Just Transition Mechanism ahead of COP31. The feminist just transition roundtable held by WELA also gave the opportunity to strategize on feminist futures, asking the difficult but necessary question of “what are we transitioning into”? Instead of just “what are we transitioning away from”?

Borrowed from ecology and rooted in the conceptualization explored by Mundo Cumon (see video below), refugia refers to pockets of stability where life survives during periods of crisis. Spaces where species endure hostile conditions long enough to regenerate and repopulate once the climate stabilizes again. In a world defined by overlapping crises, perhaps refugia is also the language we need for feminist organizing today. 

We are living through a time of rupture. The triple planetary crisis: climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution, is intensifying inequalities everywhere, with women, girls, and gender-diverse people bearing disproportionate impacts. At the same time, we are witnessing escalating attacks on human rights, feminist movements, dissent, and civic space. Across the world, people are putting their bodies on the frontlines every single day to fight for the bare minimum: safety, dignity, survival. 

Yet, the systems built to protect us are falling behind. Multilateral institutions meant to prevent crises from escalating are increasingly unable or unwilling to respond with urgency this moment demands. For many young people, especially young feminists, there is a growing sense that the structures we inherited are cracking under pressure. 

However, this is not a moment where we have the privilege of giving up. This is the moment to build refugia; spaces that preserve feminist wisdom, protect collective memory, and sustain brave political imagination in hostile times. Spaces that continue to hold onto truth when the world insists on reducing everything into binaries. Spaces that nurture transformative futures rooted in care for people and the planet. Refugia are not spaces of retreat, they are spaces of survival and regeneration; and we are already seeing them emerge. 

Women Deliver in Melbourne was one of those moments. Bringing together more than 6,000 people across movements, from climate justice to sexual and reproductive health and rights, care economies, Indigenous sovereignty, and economic justice. The convening became a living example of what feminist refugia can look like. Grounded in the leadership and offering of First Nations communities, the gathering allowed us to sit with the discomfort of the world while still daring to imagine beyond it. 

These conversations matter because the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) remains one of the most important multilateral spaces shaping global climate governance. The Conference of Parties (COP) is where governments negotiate the direction of climate action, but it has never been governments alone moving these processes forward. Civil society has always been in the backrooms strategizing, holding bilaterals in the hallway, building coalitions and pushing the boundaries of what becomes politically possible. 

The role of rights-holder constituencies within the UNFCCC, including YOUNGO, the Women and Gender Constituency, Indigenous Peoples Organizations, environmental NGOs, and trade unions, reflects years of hard-won organizing to institutionalize participation within these spaces. Feminists haven’t just participated in climate diplomacy, we have helped reshape it. One example is the growing momentum behind establishing a Global Just Transition Mechanism. This did not emerge because governments suddenly became ambitious. It emerged because civil society, particularly young feminists and rights-holder constituencies recognized that just transition discussions were trapped in endless dialogue without the coordination, resources, and accountability needed for implementation. 

This is what youth-led feminist climate diplomacy looks like, learning the rules of multilateralism while simultaneously pushing its boundaries. It is knocking on the doors of diplomacy with realities communities are facing on the ground and refusing to allow those realities to be ignored. 

Australia’s role on the road to COP31 also makes this moment unique. Through the unprecedented presidency arrangement between both countries, Turkiye will formally assume the COP31 Presidency and Australia will serve as the President of Negotiations. As the UNFCCC rewrites norms around presidency modalities, Australia is simultaneously being offered an opportunity to rewrite its own track record of climate action. For countries across Oceania and the Pacific already living through rising sea levels, displacement, and escalating climate disasters, the stakes could not be higher. This is the moment for Australia to rise alongside the communities at the frontlines of the crisis and as a Presidency accountable to the realities of the region. The momentum built around feminist climate frameworks, from the Belém Gender Action Plan and Global Just Transition Mechanism to commitments on mitigation and climate finance cannot be stalled under another COP cycle marked by weakened ambition. Feminist civil society in Australia and across the world are already mobilizing around this responsibility. As COP31 approaches, they continue to show that they are not just outside observers but the experts on the ground with solutions needed to move climate negotiations forward. 

However, all that said, momentum does not carry itself. People do. So, on the road from Women Deliver to COP31, there are three things we must do: 

First, organize collectively. The momentum behind feminist climate frameworks from the Belém Gender Action Plan to the Global Just Transition Mechanism came from coordinated pressure across feminist movements, youth networks, labour unions, and Indigenous peoples. 

Second, translate global commitments into national pressure. COP decisions are shaped long before negotiators enter the room. We need communities to have conversations with their governments, asking how they plan on implementing the decisions adopted, what resourcing they are willing to channel, and what accountability mechanisms they are going to set up to report on these commitments. 

Finally, we must come prepared not only with demands but with solutions. Civil society has consistently shown that when we bring concrete proposals, language, and strategy into these negotiations, we shift what becomes possible. 

That is what refugia teaches us. Survival is not passive. It is collective, strategic, and deeply imaginative. If we carry that spirit into COP31, then our task is not simply holding governments accountable; it is to make it impossible for them to ignore the future we are already building.