Diversity in leadership: analysing representation in global committees on climate and health

Climate change is the greatest threat to global health. There are several working groups at the intersection of climate and health, which provide leadership in global governance around the issue-but their diversity has not been previously analysed.

We analysed 13 active committees, comprising 226 members. Committee members were analysed in terms of World Bank country income status, political grouping (G7 membership), climate vulnerability (being from Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and top 10 in the Global Climate Risk Index, 2021) and gender.

We found that 72.1% of the committee members are from high-income countries (HICs), 57.0% are from G7 nations, 2.2% are from SIDS nations, 5.3% are from the top 10 most vulnerable climate vulnerable countries and 45.6% are female. Only three committees exhibit a balanced representation in terms of country income status. Nine committees have more than half of their members from G7 countries. 10 committees do not have representation from SIDS, and 7 lack members from the 10 most climate-vulnerable countries. Eight committees have good gender representation. Most chairs and co-chairs (only six committees reported them) are from HICs (83.3%), with good gender representation. Half of these chairs and co-chairs are from G7 nations, 16.7% are from SIDS and none are from the 10 most climate vulnerable nations.

We call on committees to develop policies that are grounded in intersectionality to improve diversity among their members, including for Indigenous/Adivasi people (which we did not analyse) to improve global governance of climate and health.