Exploring the democracy-climate nexus: a review of correlations between democracy and climate policy performance

Daniel Lindvall and Mikael Karlsson

Climate Policy, 2024, vol. 24, issue 1, 87-103

Abstract: In order to explore the strengths and weaknesses of democracies in mitigating climate change, this article presents a review of more than two decades of research on the democracy-climate nexus. It studies 72 identified articles and book chapters in which correlation analyses between indicators of democracy and climate policy performances have been conducted. The review confirms that democracies tend to generate better climate policy outputs than autocracies, in terms of adoption of policies, laws and regulations. However, there is weak empirical evidence for an association between democratic development and CO2 emission reductions. While empirical evidence shows that democracy can promote decarbonization, aspects such as economic growth, income distribution, energy mix, state capacity and corruption can influence the outcome of decarbonization policy or even counteract it. The research indicates that with deployment of renewable energy, economic activities are increasingly disconnected from fossil fuel dependence, and the political influence of the fossil fuel industry reduced. This process could also enhance the capacity of democracies to accelerate the energy transition and reduce emission levels. Investments in renewable energy, together with policies aiming at combating corruption and accomplishing a fairer wealth distribution, could help to unleash the transformative capacity of democracy towards a low-carbon future.Studies show that democracies tend to generate better climate policy outputs than autocracies, but the empirical evidence that democracy promotes climate policy impact, such as decrease of CO2 emissions, is weak.Economic growth, income distribution, energy mix, and corruption influence climate policy performance significantly more than the level of democracy.In developing countries with rapid growth, democratic qualities do not have any noteworthy alleviating effect on emissions generated by growth; hence combating poverty and in parallel advancing and sustaining human freedom, without carbon-intensive economic development, can be challenging.Investments in renewable energy can enhance the capacity of democracies to decrease CO2 emissions, as economic activities are increasingly disconnected from fossil fuel dependency and the related political influence of the fossil fuel industry.None of the reviewed studies provide any evidence suggesting that autocratic regimes perform better on climate policy than democracies.

Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1080/14693062.2023.2256697

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