Rebeka Shaw, Aayushi Rai, Niyati Kotiyal, Ravi Ranjan Kumar, Kushi N Jain

Introduction

India is confronting a growing climate problem. Anthropogenic climate change is responsible for 37% of heat-related deaths worldwide, and the nation has routinely broken heat records. According to the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), these deaths increased by 34% between 2013 and 2022 in contrast to the decade before. At the centre of this dilemma lies Delhi, a heavily crowded city with over 33 million inhabitants that is characterised by severe climate variability, chronic air pollution, and inadequate infrastructure. The majority of this exacerbated situation is concentrated in Delhi’s informal settlements, which are home to nearly 10 million people, in a city that is itself ranked among the most polluted in the world by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Women in these informal settlements are vulnerable on several levels in this situation. They are disproportionately impacted by climate-induced shocks like heatwaves, droughts, and floods since they are the major carers and managers of the household care sector. However, despite playing a crucial role in preserving the livelihoods of households and communities, they are often excluded from official climate decision-making processes. Systemic hurdles including restricted access to technology, education, financing, and land further exacerbate this marginalisation. Women and girls, who are more likely to experience violence, exploitation, and instability, makeup 80% of those displaced by climate disasters worldwide.

However, despite these challenges, women are more than just helpless victims. Their leadership abilities, resilience, and local knowledge are crucial to adaptation initiatives. The important but frequently unseen roles that women play in enhancing climate resilience in Delhi’s informal settlements are highlighted in this article. Along with providing a detailed study of both grassroots action and structural gaps, it also looks at the larger policy frameworks that support or undermine their activities.

Policy Landscape: Multilevel Governance for Gender-Inclusive Climate Action

To understand women’s roles in climate resilience, we must first examine the multilevel policy frameworks that shape their participation. While the global and national policies reflect a growing recognition of gender equity in climate action, the extent to which these policies translate into effective, local implementation remains varied.

Globally, the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)- especially Goal 5 (Gender Equality), Goal 11 (Sustainable Cities), and Goal 13 (Climate Action), underscore the importance of inclusive and gender-responsive urban planning. UNFCCC’s Gender Action Plan and CEDAW’s General Recommendation No. 37 further emphasize women’s leadership in disaster risk reduction and climate governance. Mechanisms like the Loss and Damage Fund created at COP27 provide financial support to vulnerable communities, including urban slum dwellers.

At the national level, India’s National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) integrates gender considerations across key missions. Locally, the Delhi State Action Plan on Climate Change (SAPCC) encourages women-led adaptation strategies in areas like water conservation, waste management, and disaster preparedness. The Mukhyamantri Mahila Samman Yojana (2024) adds another layer by providing institutional and financial support to strengthen women’s climate resilience and livelihood security.

These frameworks lay the foundation for gender-inclusive climate action. However, to gauge their real impact, we must shift our focus to the urban peripheries- Delhi’s informal settlements, where the struggle for survival and resilience plays out most vividly.

Situating the Crisis: Delhi’s Informal Settlements as Climate Hotspot

Delhi’s informal settlements are situated at the nexus of urban vulnerability and environmental stress. These neighbourhoods experience disproportionately higher impacts from extreme heat, flooding, and pollution. The city recently recorded temperatures as high as 52.9℃ in May 2024, exacerbated by the urban heat island effect and poor housing infrastructure, particularly in slum areas lacking proper ventilation and insulation.

The projected increase in Delhi’s average annual temperatures by 1–4℃ by 2050 translates into a 4% rise in mortality for every degree above 29℃. Additionally, monsoon variability and heavy rainfall lead to flooding and water contamination, especially in areas close to the Yamuna River. These events result in disease outbreaks, loss of livelihoods, and increased health risks, further destabilizing vulnerable communities, particularly women, who already shoulder the burdens of domestic care and resource provisioning.

These lived experiences underscore the urgency of centring women in climate adaptation efforts. Fortunately, several grassroots initiatives have emerged that do just that.

MAP 1: Location of the Area of Study

Source: Compiled by the Authors

Women in Action: Grassroots Leadership and Community Resilience

In response to the mounting climate challenges faced by women in these vulnerable communities, organizations like the Mahila Housing Trust (MHT) have played a critical role in empowering them to lead climate adaptation initiatives. MHT’s work spans climate education, leadership training, and infrastructural interventions tailored to the everyday realities of women in informal settlements.

1. Climate Education: Using tools like games and visual media, MHT demystifies climate science for women, focusing on everyday impacts- such as water shortages, disease, and heat waves.

2. Clean Energy and Cool Roofs: Through partnerships with electricity companies, MHT facilitates the installation of solar panels and promotes cool roofs- affordable solutions that significantly reduce indoor heat and energy bills.

3. Air Pollution Advocacy: In collaboration with Help Delhi Breathe (HDB), MHT has engaged female construction workers in resettlement colonies like Bakkarwala and Sawda Ghevra to raise awareness about air pollution. These women are not only learning about the hazards but actively mobilizing for clean air and influencing local policy.

Complementing the efforts of organizations like MHT, individual leaders have also emerged from within communities to drive change. One such example is Shipra Narula, a former youth volunteer who began her journey with Swechha’s Yamuna cleanup campaign during her undergraduate years. Moved by the sight of the heavily polluted river, she transitioned from participant to leader, gradually expanding her work into city-wide afforestation projects such as Monsoon Wooding, which has planted thousands of native trees across Delhi-NCR.

Shipra’s climate leadership is rooted not in formal authority but in lived experience and community action. She has worked closely with slum communities to improve access to clean water and sanitation, while also mentoring young people, especially girls, through environmental education workshops. Whether digging saplings in smog-filled air or organizing local clean-up drives, her efforts reflect a grounded, hands-on approach to resilience-building.

Like the women mobilized by MHT, Shipra embodies a form of leadership that is passionate, community-driven, and deeply responsive to the environmental injustices faced by Delhi’s most vulnerable populations.

Invisible Costs of Leadership: The Burden Women Bear

A silent revolution is unfolding in the heart of Delhi’s smog-laden cityscape, where the burden of toxic air and environmental neglect is increasingly being borne by women. Far from the corridors of power, it is mothers, educators, and ordinary residents who are stepping into leadership roles to combat one of India’s most urgent public health and environmental crises. Their stories illuminate not only a profound commitment to change but also the steep personal toll that such leadership entails- physically, psychologically, and economically.

The Physical Cost

While their resilience is inspiring, the health risks these women face are deeply concerning. Whether it’s organizing tree plantation drives, leading clean-up campaigns, or protesting in heavily polluted areas, grassroots environmental action in Delhi often means sustained exposure to hazardous environments. This daily reality leads to fatigue, respiratory illnesses, skin disorders, and other health complications—especially among women with pre-existing conditions or caregiving responsibilities. The absence of protective gear and inadequate public infrastructure only heightens this risk. In such a setting, advocacy is not just vocal—it is visceral, lived, and embodied.

The Psychological Weight of Advocacy

The emotional toll is equally heavy. Women climate leaders are caught in the crosshairs of activism and domestic responsibility, constantly navigating between caregiving and community organizing. The chronic anxiety of raising children amidst worsening air quality, coupled with frustration over bureaucratic inertia and societal apathy, often leads to burnout. Their mental well-being is seldom prioritized, and their emotional labour is largely invisible and normalized under the garb of “care work” and resilience. Without institutional support or access to mental health resources, this becomes an unsustainable burden.

The Economic Cost of Volunteerism

Despite their critical role in driving climate action, many of these women work on a purely voluntary basis, receiving little to no financial backing. Expenses for campaign materials, transportation, protective gear, and health care are often borne personally. The financial strain is compounded by the opportunity costs of unpaid labour-sacrificing income-generating activities or professional growth for activism. Their efforts, though deeply impactful, are frequently dismissed as emotional or informal, undermining the professionalism and systems-level impact of their work. Passion alone cannot fund a movement, and yet, institutional neglect keeps these initiatives chronically under-resourced.

Barriers to Scaling Women’s Impact

While the leadership of women in climate action is commendable, it remains constrained by deeply entrenched structural barriers, especially in the context of Delhi’s informal settlements. These limitations are not incidental but systemic, shaped by the intersection of climate vulnerability and social inequality.

Understanding these barriers requires a broader, context-sensitive lens that sees climate action not as an isolated objective, but as part of a continuum of socio-political and economic dynamics. Many residents of informal settlements are internal migrants, displaced from rural livelihoods by economic precarity and drawn to cities in search of opportunity. However, what they often find are marginal spaces on the urban periphery, plagued by inadequate services and heightened exposure to climate risks.

Women in these settlements exist at the confluence of multiple layers of disadvantage. Traditional gender roles restrict their mobility, autonomy, and decision-making power, while the burden of unpaid domestic labour limits their time and capacity for public engagement. Educational gaps and lack of access to resources further narrow their options to low-paid, informal sector jobs, such as domestic work or waste-picking roles that offer little security or recognition.

This compounded marginalization makes it harder for women to participate meaningfully in climate governance or access leadership opportunities. Their disproportionate exposure to heatwaves, water scarcity, and poor air quality only intensifies these vulnerabilities. To address this imbalance, interventions must move beyond surface-level representation and instead adopt a process-oriented perspective, one that transforms underlying power dynamics and amplifies marginalized voices.

Inclusive and sustainable climate action must be rooted in social justice. It requires systemic investment in women’s education, public infrastructure, financial support, and civic platforms that prioritize local knowledge and lived experience. Only then can community-based, women-led climate leadership scale meaningfully and equitably.

Conclusion: Reimagining Resilience through Gender Justice

Resilience is about fighting systemic inequities that make some communities more susceptible than others, not only about surviving climate shocks, as demonstrated by the experiences of women climate leaders in Delhi’s informal settlements. In highly unequal urban environments, women like Shipra Narula and the Mahila Housing Trust members are reinventing what climate action looks like, not just filling in the gaps left by the state.

However, their leadership is still overworked, understaffed, and underappreciated. These women reveal the gendered costs of climate leadership—and the pressing need for a more supportive ecosystem—as they deal with environmental risks, bureaucratic indifference, and the emotional toll of caregiving. It is not just morally required but also strategically advantageous to invest in their education, well-being, and agency. Truly inclusive, flexible, and sustainable urban futures can be created via their collaborative organising, lived experiences, and grassroots insights. We must shift from tokenistic inclusion to transformative change if we are to grow climate resilience in a meaningful way.

This entails breaking down systemic obstacles, rethinking government via gender justice, and making room for the most under-represented voices to take the lead. Only then will Delhi and similar cities be able to develop socially just and climate-smart resilience.

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Tags – Climate Resilience, Women Leadership, Delhi, Informal Settlements, Climate Action, SDG 13.