Climate Change: An Example of a Gender-Related Leadership Crisis
by Dominic Hofstetter and Isabel Sommer
We both believe that the world would be a better place if it was more equitable and just. In other words, power and control in society should be distributed fairly across all interest groups. This is not the case today, particularly for the sociodemographic dimension of gender. Men currently lead 95% of Fortune 500 companies and 94% of the world’s countries, so they hold virtually all of the world’s corporate and political power.
In our worldview, such a gross imbalance of control is fundamentally unfair. This ethical consideration alone provides ample reason for society to remedy it. In the context of climate change, we believe that the world must also acknowledge an undeniable fact: that for more than 40 years, a male-dominated political and corporate class has failed to produce any tangible impact.
Our continued inability to curb global warming is thus a failure of male leadership, and rebalancing control could hold the key to progress. Indeed, a growing body of research suggests that women would be more capable of addressing the problem. Correcting unjust power distribution in society should thus become a priority in our effort to safeguard Earth’s climate.
There are several reasons why empowering women holds the promise of producing the breakthroughs we need. Research shows that women are better able than men to feel and deploy empathy, seek compromise, and consider fairness. These qualities are valuable in negotiating a collective action problem with strong empathy and fairness dimensions. Studies also show that women are better decision-makers, in part because they tend to be more circumspect and less egocentric than their male peers. This is a key reason why researchers have found women to be more effective leaders, outcompeting men in many areas, particularly in taking initiative and driving outcomes.
These findings aren’t theoretical constructs. They translate into tangible outcomes in both politics and business. A study investigating the impact of female parliamentarians on climate policy showed that female representation leads to more decisive climate action and lower carbon dioxide emissions.
It is no surprise that some of the most climate-ambitious countries, regions, and cities have all benefited from female top leadership in the most recent past: Michelle Bachelet in Chile, Angela Merkel in Germany, Erna Solberg in Norway, Nicola Sturgeon in Scotland, Anne Hidalgo in Paris, Karin Wanngård in Stockholm, and Ada Colau in Barcelona.
The picture is similar in the business world. Researchers at UC Berkeley have found that companies with women on their boards are more likely to invest in renewable energy and energy efficiency, integrate climate change into their actuarial models, and measure and reduce carbon emissions of their products. No wonder then that today’s 100 most sustainable companies have three times as many female top executives than the average multinational firm.
So how can society reduce power inequality where it matters most for climate change?
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is the most important political forum negotiating the world’s response to global warming. Once a year, the signatory countries of the UNFCCC send delegations to a multilateral conference to discuss and decide on climate action. Women account for less than 30% of the leaders of these delegations — an imbalance that has prompted the United Nations to develop a gender action plan. In many countries, the environmental minister nominates the head of the delegation. NGOs, journalists, academics, and other civil society actors need to mount a targeted awareness and influence campaign to increase the fraction of women leading such delegations.
Longer-term, western societies will need to level the playing field in business and politics. Women still face many structural disadvantages that inhibit their rise to power. In politics, they are held back by gender biases from both voters and party officials. These influence their positions on voting lists and reduce their chances in elections. In business, they suffer from gender-role stereotypes, motherhood penalties, and in-group favoritism. These create ‘sticky floors’, ‘glass ceilings’, and gender pay gaps, and shareholder and stock market biases.
The best climate strategies might thus be those that remove such structural barriers. We need smarter child care and parental leave regimes and greater part-time employment opportunities. We need quotas in both politics and business, where appropriate and effective. We need unconscious bias training to raise awareness and correct behaviors among those in power today.
Success in our effort to stem climate change will materialize over time. There will be no single decision presiding over the fate of human civilization as we know it. Instead, progress will depend on countless decisions taken every day in business, politics, and other parts of society. Decisions are made in a specific moment, place, and context. So it matters whom we entrust with making these decisions. The evidence clearly shows that female leadership produces better outcomes for our climate. We believe the time has come to tackle the redistribution of power — for the sake of our climate, and for the sake of a more equitable and just world.
