Gender Distribution of Leadership Positions in Global Environmental Politics

Many institutions have called for increasing the number of women in leadership positions in global environmental politics (GEP). Little information exists, however, regarding gender distributions in such positions. This brief report begins filling in elements of our collective data gap. Men currently lead 80 percent of the fifteen global intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) that are particularly important to GEP and have held 90 percent of these positions in the past. Men currently lead 70 percent of national environmental ministries and have held approximately 78 percent of those positions. Equal numbers of men and women currently lead the twenty most prominent environmental treaty secretariats, although men have held more than 70 percent of these positions in the past. During the twenty-first century, men received 69 percent of the appointments to lead the IGOs and treaty secretariats most important to GEP. These numbers raise a series of research, ethical, and political questions.