More than a decade ago, during a field visit to a remote village in India, a woman pointed to a solar panel and asked whether it could power the diesel pump she used to irrigate her field. At the time, India was scaling solar-powered irrigation rapidly, but the technology had not reached her village.

Her question was not simply about technology. It was about access. She had encountered a cleaner alternative by chance, not through a system designed to reach her.

Nearly ten years later, too many women across the Global South continue to discover climate solutions accidentally. This reflects a deeper blind spot in the just transition agenda.

The transition debate has focused on sectors such as coal, steel and power, industries that are visible, formal, unionised and predominantly male. While these sectors are critical, they do not represent where millions of women work. Across emerging economies, women are concentrated in SMEs, informal enterprises and low-margin livelihoods that are highly vulnerable to the costs of decarbonisation and least equipped to absorb them.

Clean cooking is one example. For women running food businesses, inefficient fuels affect health, productivity and incomes. Since their workplaces are often also their homes, clean cooking is not only a climate intervention. It is a labour, livelihood and dignity issue.

The textile sector presents a similar challenge. With around 60 million workers globally, approximately 80% women, the industry is central to decarbonisation efforts. Yet women workers, particularly those in informal and low-paid roles, risk bearing the costs of transition as suppliers struggle to finance new technologies and meet sustainability expectations.

A truly just transition requires a shift in how we think about climate finance: from financing technologies alone to financing people, enterprises and ecosystems.

At Intellecap, our work points to three critical shifts: First, transition support must be place-based. Change happens within specific economic ecosystems, not in isolation. Our work with textile clusters in India looks beyond technology adoption to understand manufacturers, workers, local capabilities and relationships that enable transition.

Second, we need stronger South-South collaboration. Solutions emerging across Asia and Africa can be shared, adapted and evolved across contexts facing similar challenges of informality, affordability and access to finance.

Third, women must move from being considered beneficiaries of transition to being architects of it. Gender cannot be an afterthought. It must shape how solutions are designed, financed and scaled around women’s enterprises, livelihoods, care responsibilities and access to markets.

The question is not only how much climate finance exists, but who it reaches and whose risks it protects against. If women workers, entrepreneurs and informal enterprises are expected to carry the costs of decarbonisation without adequate support, we are not financing a just transition. We are transferring risk to those least able to bear it.