Gender, mobility, and climate policy: assessing English and German climate action plans with a gender just lens

Abstract

Climate adaptation and mobility are key social, political and planning approaches for liveable cities and regions. In order to be socially just and sustainable, they must take gender issues and gender perspectives into account. These are still underestimated as central components of effective climate policy in cities and regions. The focus of plans is predominantly on technical aspects. Questions such as accessibility or enabling participation for all are rarely addressed. Due to its normative character as well as its significance for climate protection and distributive justice, the mobility sector was chosen to investigate how the gender perspective is integrated into planning guidelines. The paper shows how gender-relevant aspects are integrated into climate and mobility measures and how they can be evaluated via examples in the UK and Germany. With a focus on gender impacts the authors use two well-established assessment methods in gender research: the gender integration continuum (GIC) was chosen to investigate existing ideas and practices in sustainable mobility planning practices. The gender impact assessment (GIA) made it possible to unravel the logic behind the practices. The analysis shows that although supporting public transport, walking and cycling, and the model of the 15-Minute-City are generally considered to be very important, it was rare to link this to greater gender equality and intersectional mobility justice. While existing structures are adapted on a small scale at most, there is no fundamental reorientation towards more gender-equitable municipal and regional mobility planning. Recommendations for actions and further research are made.