Silver Lining to Extreme Weather Events? Democracy and Climate Change Mitigation

Abstract

Long-standing meteorological research has established that anthropogenic climate change increases the risk and intensity of extreme weather events, such as tropical cyclones, floods, and forest fires. However, comparatively little is known about the impact of such events on policy ambition. Studies on the topic emerged only recently and tend to focus on individual country cases. A comprehensive cross-country perspective is still missing. This article addresses the gap in the literature using large-scale analyses on the basis of country-level data from 2008 to 2017. The findings indicate that extreme weather events propel only highly functioning democracies to tackle climate change. Effects among remaining country cases are insignificant. This variation in the data can be attributed to democracies’ concern for the common good and the perspectives of those most affected by climate-related disasters.

Phasing Out Fossil Fuels: Determinants of Production Cuts and Implications for an International Agreement

“…A core set of factors found in the literature is that democratic countries with high public concern over climate change and low dependence on fossil fuel revenues are those most likely to use supply-side constraints, often as a result of government decisions and/or demands from civil society movements (Dryzek and Niemeyer 2019;Hanusch 2017;Lewis et al 2019;Peterson 2021). In contrast, countries dependent on revenues from the production of fossil fuels, especially under authoritarian regimes, are not expected to use such supply-side measures, as these would likely translate into financial losses and political turmoil for governments (Bridge and Le Billon 2017;Girod et al 2018;Smith 2017).…”

“…Democratic rule and strong civil society are expected to provide favorable contexts and enable supply-side initiatives (Lewis et al 2019;Martinez-Alier 2022;Peterson 2021). Both corruption and a (post)-conflict context are expected to reduce the likelihood of supply-cut initiatives, as corrupt financial incentives would negatively influence public decisions over the cancellation or closure of fossil fuel projects (Williams and Le Billon 2017) and the need for postconflict reconstruction would motivate authorities and society to support fossil fuel production to boost public finances and the economy (Le Billon 2014; Lujala and Rustad 2012).…”

Environmental commitments and rhetoric over the Pandemic crisis: social media and legitimation of the AIIB, the EAEU, and the EU

“…2021). Recent studies have focused on comparing cross-country responses to COVID-19 versus responses to the environmental crisis; investigating national responses to the Pandemic and to climate change as well as analysing the role of democracy across these issues (Nguyen 2021;Van der Ven and Sun 2021;Wapner 2021;Peterson 2021). We take this comparative approach to the pandemic and environmental issues further and compare the responses of different types of IOs towards the pandemic crisis and to their environmental commitments outlined in their legal documents (e.g., the IO's founding agreements).…”

Anthropogenic influence on extremes and risk hotspots

“…High-impact extreme weather events can change risk perceptions faced by decision-makers and the public view about climate change. Hence, it can influence climate policy and foster more ambitious mitigation and adaptation goals [2][3][4] .Changes in precipitation and temperature patterns and the frequency and magnitudes of extreme events are influenced by several thermodynamic and dynamic processes affected by climate change 5,6 . For instance, as warming increases, the capacity of the atmosphere to hold moisture increases and, accordingly, extreme rainfall can exceed past record levels.…”

“…High-impact extreme weather events can change risk perceptions faced by decision-makers and the public view about climate change. Hence, it can influence climate policy and foster more ambitious mitigation and adaptation goals [2][3][4] .…”