The ideological gender gap appears to be ever-growing – even when it comes to globally impactful issues like climate change.
A new report from the Environmental Voter Project, a nonpartisan nonprofit that encourages climate-conscious citizens to get to the polls, indicates that women seem to be far more worried about environmental issues than men. Of the current and prospective voters the nonprofit has engaged with, a majority (62%) are women.
The gap was wider, still, among younger, Black and Indigenous voters, researchers told The 19th, which first published the study’s findings. “At a time when other political gender gaps … are staying relatively stable, there’s something unique going on with gender and public opinion about climate change,” Nathaniel Stinnett, founder of the EVP, told the online publication.
It’s an issue that has direct impacts on voter behavior, too. Climate-concerned voters that the EVP spoke with cast their ballots for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris last fall by a 10-to-1 margin.
This data should inform who we turn to for guidance on climate, experts say. “If almost two thirds of climate voters are women, then all of us need to get better at embracing women’s wisdom and leadership skills,” Stinnett noted. “That doesn’t just apply to messaging. It applies to how we build and lead a movement of activists and voters.”
This idea aligns with what other experts have said recently with regards to the future of the climate-change fight. A 2025 report from United Nations Climate Change also called for the centering of women’s concerns and leadership in turning the (ever-rising) tide.
“As we know, stronger climate action delivers huge benefits for people in their daily lives. More jobs, more economic opportunities and lower health costs,” Simon Stiell, executive secretary of UN Climate Change, said in a press release announcing their new publication. “Applying a gender-responsive approach ensures that those benefits are shared equally.”
That said, experts at the EVP expressed some confusion around why women seem more concerned about the climate than men – though men’s seemingly ever-growing conservatism was cited as a potential factor.
To curb that trend, Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, the president of youth voting organization NextGen America, spoke to The 19th about ways to bring younger men back into the progressive, environmentally friendly fold.
“There are great things about healthy masculinity … about wanting to protect those you love and those that are more vulnerable,” she said. That energy, Ramirez continued, could be funneled into encouraging action from men who want “to protect their families, or those they love, or their communities from the consequences of the climate crisis.”
