Osprey Orielle Lake is founder and executive director of The Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) and a steering committee member of the Fossil Fuel Treaty.
Around the world, women are leading some of the most powerful efforts to stop fossil fuel expansion and implement the just transition the climate crisis demands.
In the Ecuadorian Amazon, Nemonte Nenquimo, an Indigenous Waorani woman, led a successful lawsuit for the Waorani against the Ecuadorian government to protect their territory and the Amazonian rainforest from oil extraction. Ecuador’s courts ruled in favor of the Waorani, setting a legal precedent for Indigenous rights and prompting similar legal fights worldwide.
In the heart of Cancer Alley in the Gulf South of the United States, Sharon Lavigne, founder of Rise St. James, took on fossil fuel polluters and won. After stopping a Formosa petrochemical facility in her parish, she continues to organize communities to stop fossil fuels, bringing awareness to the severe health impacts caused by the industry.
An initial cornerstone for an upcoming government convening on fossil fuel phaseout is the Fossil Fuel Treaty, which was founded by Tzeporah Burman. She won the 2019 Climate Breakthrough Award for her bold Treaty vision, which has now taken center stage in international climate action.
These women are not anomalies, they are part of a broader movement. Women the world over are stopping harmful projects and building regenerative futures. They are defending land, water, climate, and health. They are redefining what leadership looks like in a time of crisis.
Research has found that countries with higher representation of women in parliament are more likely to ratify environmental treaties. One prominent cross-national study found that CO2 emissions decrease by approximately 11.51 percent in response to a one-unit increase in each countries’ scoring on the Women’s Political Empowerment Index. When women are incorporated into disaster planning or forest management, projects are more resilient and effective.
Yet because of persistent gender inequality, women – particularly Indigenous, Black and Brown women and women in low-income and frontline communities – are often disproportionately harmed by fossil fuel extraction and pollution. At the same time, they are also indispensable leaders of equitable solutions.
Bold, transformative solutions needed
Although the climate crisis may not be in the headlines recently, the crisis is increasing at lightening speed. From 2023 to 2025, the world crossed a dangerous threshold, marking the first three-year global average that exceeded the crucial 1.5°C guardrail, the very limit scientists identified as critical to avoid the worst catastrophic tipping points.
This is not a eulogy for 1.5°C, but an alarm about a narrowing window. The data makes clear that we still have an opportunity to hold long-term warming below that life-affirming threshold. What is required now is not incrementalism and business as usual but bold and transformative solutions from grassroots movements to the halls of government.
At the top of the list in tackling the climate crisis is the urgent need for a global phaseout of fossil fuel extraction and production. Coal, oil, and gas remain the primary driver of the climate crisis, and fossil fuel pollution is responsible for one in five deaths worldwide. The simple but challenging fact is, there is no way forward without a phaseout.
In 2023, at the U.N. Climate Summit in Dubai (COP28), governments agreed for the first time to “transition away from fossil fuels.” The language was historic but nonbinding, and implementation has been severely hindered. Most governments are doubling down and increasing production across coal, gas, and oil. At COP30 in Brazil, while 80 countries called for fossil fuel language in the final outcome text, governments ultimately left without any commitments to a phaseout.
Women’s assembly for fossil fuel phaseout
In response to this stalled progress, Colombia and the Netherlands are convening the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, bringing together governments committed to advancing cooperation toward a managed, equitable phaseout. Occurring outside the formal UN climate negotiations, the gathering reflects a growing recognition that progress often requires voluntary alliances of ambitious nations.
The urgency of this moment demands more than policy tweaks. It calls for a restructuring of the systems that fueled the crisis such as economic models that externalize harm, energy systems that prioritize profit over people, and governance structures that marginalize frontline communities. How we navigate this transition will shape the world our children inherit, and evidence shows that women’s leadership is vital to ensure a healthy and equitable outcome.
Colombia aims to launch fossil fuel transition platform at first global conference
As governments, civil society and global advocates prepare for the conference in Colombia, women’s leadership must not be an afterthought. It needs to be central to the agenda, inspired by equity, justice and care.
That is why the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network is convening global women leaders to advance strategies, proposals, and projects at the public Women’s Assembly for a Just Fossil Fuel Phaseout to be held virtually on March 31 to call for transformative action in Colombia. All are welcome.
A livable future depends on bold action now, and on women leading the way at this critical moment.
