CLIMATE JUSTICE IN PUERTO RICO:
Why Supporting Solutions with a Gender Lens Is Urgent

In the photo left to right: Coraly León Morales, Gloria M. Vázquez Meléndez, Cristina Parés-Alicea, Verónica Colón Rosario, Lisdel Flores Barger, Miguel Vázquez Rivera, Stephanie Figueroa, y Kari Claudio Betancourt

Puerto Rico on the Frontlines of the Climate Crisis

Puerto Rico is already living the consequences of the climate crisis.

According to the Climate Risk Index 2025 published by Germanwatch, Puerto Rico ranked among the ten regions most affected by extreme weather events in 2022, reflecting both exposure to climate hazards and limited adaptive capacity. Hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, heatwaves, and prolonged power outages are now recurring disruptions that shape everyday life.

What makes these climate shocks especially dangerous is the context in which they occur.

Decades of economic contraction, federally imposed austerity measures, and weakened public institutions—compounded by Hurricane María in 2017 and the 2019–2020 earthquakes—have severely eroded essential systems, including:

• Energy and water infrastructure
• Transportation and housing
• Healthcare and social services

Despite billions in federal recovery allocations, many communities remain in partial or stalled recovery. The electrical grid continues to fail regularly, public agencies operate with limited capacity, and community organizations are forced to fill gaps left by the state.

This creates what many Puerto Ricans describe as “permanent recovery mode”, a condition of chronic crisis that leaves little room for long-term planning or prevention.

Climate Disasters Expose Inequality

Puerto Rico contributes minimally to global greenhouse gas emissions, yet it bears some of the highest climate-related costs in the world. These impacts are not evenly distributed.

When Hurricane María devastated the archipelago, the collapse of infrastructure—particularly the energy grid—left entire communities without electricity for months. Access to clean water, refrigeration for medication, safe transportation, and healthcare became daily struggles.

Women absorbed much of this burden.

They coordinated caregiving for children, elders, and people with disabilities. They found ways to secure food, water, and medical care while navigating unemployment, displacement, and trauma. Disasters do not only destroy physical infrastructure; they reverse hard-won gains in gender equity.

These dynamics mirror global trends. As Jemimah Njuki of UN Women has stated:

“The climate crisis is not gender-neutral. Women and girls disproportionately bear the brunt of climate change, yet their voices remain largely underrepresented in climate decision-making.”

Similarly, Sarah Hendriks, UN Women’s Deputy Executive Director (a.i.), warns:

“Climate change is creating a downward spiral for women and girls… We need to transform economies away from extraction and pollution and integrate women’s rights into all aspects of climate policy and financing.”

Structural inequalities—such as limited access to land ownership, exclusion from decision-making spaces, and the unequal burden of unpaid care work—make women more exposed to climate impacts and less likely to benefit from recovery resources. 

Housing, Displacement, and the Gendered Cost of Climate Instability

Climate disasters in Puerto Rico intersect with a deep housing crisis.

Rising costs, limited affordable inventory, and repeated damage from storms and earthquakes have pushed many families into precarious living conditions—or out of their communities altogether. Displacement severs access to schools, jobs, healthcare, and informal care networks that sustain daily life.

For women, girls, and LGBTQ+ people, housing instability increases:

• Exposure to violence
• Caregiving burdens
• Economic insecurity
• Barriers to recovery and participation

When people cannot rebuild safely and affordably, each new climate event compounds existing harm rather than allowing recovery.

The Hidden Aftershock: Gender-Based Violence After Disasters

The impacts of climate change extend far beyond infrastructure.

After Hurricane María, Puerto Rico experienced a documented rise in reports of intimate partner violence and feminicides, a trend consistent with global research linking disasters to increased gender-based violence. Displacement, unemployment, overcrowded shelters, and the breakdown of social services create conditions of heightened risk.

Women-led organizations, shelters, and hotlines—often operating with limited funding—became lifelines. During the 2019–2020 earthquakes, similar patterns emerged: women reported harassment and violence, while institutional responses failed to offer adequate protection.

Without gender-responsive planning, climate disasters become violence multipliers, deepening inequality and trauma long after headlines fade.

Relevant report: Cuando la tierra tembló: Violencias y resistencias de las mujeres tras los terremotos del sur de Puerto Rico 2019-2020

Women Are Already Leading Climate Solutions in Puerto Rico

Despite chronic underfunding, women-led and LGBTQ+-inclusive organizations have been central to climate response and recovery across Puerto Rico.

Examples include:

• Casa Juana Colón (Comerío): Organized food distribution, elder care brigades, and community mutual aid networks, ensuring that rural and older populations had access to basic needs during and after climate emergencies.
• Taller Salud (Loíza): Provided emergency supplies, mental health services, and reproductive healthcare in historically marginalized Afro–Puerto Rican communities, integrating health justice into disaster response.
• True Self Foundation: Mobilized funding and rapid support to protect and sustain LGBTQ+ communities, many of whom live in precarious housing situations and face heightened risks during climate disasters. By prioritizing flexible resources and community-led strategies, True Self Foundation ensures that LGBTQ+ people—often excluded from traditional recovery efforts—are not left behind in moments of crisis.
• Fundación de Mujeres en Puerto Rico: Deployed rapid-response grants, supported feminist and gender-inclusive leadership, and strengthened grassroots organizations working at the intersection of climate justice, gender equity, and community resilience across the archipelago.

Together, these organizations demonstrate that the most effective climate responses are rooted in community knowledge, trust, and inclusion. They do not operate as short-term relief providers, but as essential local infrastructure—deeply embedded in the communities they serve.

Yet local women-led organizations receive only a fraction of climate and recovery funding compared to large, external entities. This disparity reflects:

• Restrictive federal funding requirements
• Limited philanthropic infrastructure on the island
• Persistent underinvestment in grassroots leadership

This is not a capacity problem. It is an access problem.

Beyond “Resilience”: Why Readiness Requires Investment

Puerto Ricans are often praised for their resilience. But resilience should not mean endlessly adapting to broken systems.

At Fundación de Mujeres en Puerto Rico, we believe readiness—not endurance—is the goal.

That belief led to the creation of the Mitigation Fund, a program designed to strengthen women-led, community-rooted organizations before the next crisis hits.

Through flexible, operational support, partners are able to:

• Strengthen financial and administrative systems
• Develop emergency preparedness plans
• Train leaders in crisis adaptation
• Expand community-based mental health services
• Build communication and coordination networks

When organizations are resourced, they do not have to choose between emergency response and long-term justice. They can do both.

There Is No Climate Justice Without Gender Justice

Climate justice in Puerto Rico cannot be achieved without gender justice.

Women, girls, and LGBTQ+ people are disproportionately affected by climate disasters—but they are also leading the most effective, community-based solutions. These leaders are rebuilding from the ground up while navigating chronic underfunding and systemic exclusion.

At Fundación de Mujeres en Puerto Rico, we believe progress begins when funders and policymakers recognize women-led and gender-inclusive organizations as essential partners in climate resilience, not peripheral actors.

Conclusion & Call to Action

Puerto Rico makes one truth impossible to ignore:
Climate justice cannot exist without gender justice.

The people most impacted by climate disasters—women, girls, and LGBTQ+ communities—are also those building the most effective, trusted, and sustainable responses. Yet their leadership remains chronically underfunded and sidelined in climate policy and recovery financing.

This is not a gap in resilience.
It is a failure of investment.

Women-led and gender-inclusive organizations are not auxiliary to climate response in Puerto Rico—they are essential infrastructure. They are preparing communities before disasters strike, holding systems together during crises, and sustaining recovery long after external attention fades. When these organizations are resourced, communities are safer, more coordinated, and better positioned to recover with dignity.

At Fundación de Mujeres en Puerto Rico, we believe the question is no longer whether to invest in women-led climate solutions, but how quickly we can scale them. Readiness requires foresight, flexibility, and trust in local leadership—not temporary fixes after irreversible harm has occurred.

Supporting women-led climate solutions is not charity.
It is prevention. It is preparedness. It is justice.

If we want a future where communities are not left to endure crisis after crisis, we must invest now in the leadership that has already proven it can protect life, dignity, and collective resilience.

Join us in strengthening community-rooted leadership and building a future grounded in justice, safety, and readiness.