As the challenges of climate change and its impact become a major part of public discourse, they are gaining increased momentum in institutional politics.
This article is a part of the essay series: Not the End of the World: World Environment Day 2024
The multi-faceted societal crisis emanating from global climate change challenges has besieged governmental structures across the world. Human activities contribute the most to global warming. This has in turn paved the way for frequent and major disasters and calamities, including extreme weather conditions like droughts, floods, and sea-level rise. Such contingencies adversely impact major sections of the world’s population, infrastructure and resources, many times in ways which are beyond redemption. Global warming-driven adverse repercussions create conditions for possible large-scale agricultural disruption and food insecurity. This can further propel recession and financial instability exacerbating socio-economic inequality. Such challenges in turn might create conditions for social unrest, conflicts, and human displacement, threatening societal instability worldwide. In the face of such an unprecedented crisis, creating responsive and effective policy interventions and institutions of governance across countries becomes vital.
Democracy as a political system offers itself as the most responsive and accountable governance mechanism owing to its representative structures of governance based on the rule of law along with robust oversight institutions like legislature and judiciary. The periodic election provides the citizens most crucial avenue for voicing their concerns regarding varied developmental demands and aspirations before the political actors and offers political alternatives to elect a government that best represents their aspirations and is perceived as the most effective administrator. As climate change is emerging as one of the major issues that impact developmental and governance dynamics across countries in the world, it should be imperative for democratic political systems to respond to such a crisis in the most steadfast manner. However, a traditional understanding of how political mobilisation in democracies happens suggests that political and electoral discourses in democracies largely harp upon more immediate and tangible issues like employment, inflation, war, corruption, identitarian politics, migration, and economy, amongst others. The menace of climate change challenges though extremely serious, have long-term consequences, repercussions of which voters and the political elite, do not feel immediately as it remains less tangible in comparison with the other ‘electorally salient’ issues mentioned above. So, the electoral salience of climate change issues within the political discourses of democracies remained limited in the past.
Democracy as a political system offers itself as the most responsive and accountable governance mechanism owing to its representative structures of governance based on the rule of law along with robust oversight institutions like legislature and judiciary.
However, in the last few decades, such an understanding of democratic political mobilisation has been belied with the conspicuously growing debate on the severe repercussions of climate change that is adversely impacting human lives. The frequent rise of disasters like floods, droughts, wildfires, heatwaves, and crop failures has brought climate change to the centre of public attention as people across the globe have started to get directly affected by it. The rise of ‘green’ parties across Europe is one of the vivid manifestations of this development. These green parties emerged from radical social movements like anti-nuclear weapon movements often led by student organisations, since the 1960s and 1970s. According to an article in the Council for Foreign Relations, green parties can be defined as a “broader social movement seeking to reorient the civilisation in what supporters say are more sustainable and humane directions.” They have a broad mandate that includes opposition to nuclear weapons, climate change, pollution, and food insecurity, amongst others. The forum called Global Greens Network recorded that there are around 80 green parties across countries. These green parties cover a wide range of socio-economic issues that broadly span four aspects—ecological sustainability, grassroots democracy, social justice, and non-violence.
However, in the last few decades, such an understanding of democratic political mobilisation has been belied with the conspicuously growing debate on the severe repercussions of climate change that is adversely impacting human lives.
As the mainstream parties across democracies in Europe are facing public disaffection due to many factors, the green parties with an extremely relevant political narrative are gaining ground as a new entrant in the electoral fray. For instance, Austria’s Green party acquired power in coalition with the Conservation People’s Party in 2020. Latvia got its first Prime Minister Indulis Emsis from the Green Party in 2004. Countries such as Belgium, Germany, France, New Zealand, and Italy have seen green parties joining governments in their respective countries. Not only Europe, the United States (US) has also witnessed a notable presence of green parties in the state and local elections in recent times. The US presidential election this year is also seeing the emergence of the Green Party as a notable political force. In Latin America, countries like Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia have paved the way for the green party to consolidate its position in electoral politics starting from the local institutions of politics. In Africa, Rwanda is the only country in which the Green Party is represented in the Parliament. Green party and politics are yet to gain a greater foothold in the rest part of the world. One of the central dilemmas with the approach of green parties has been whether they would adhere to the radical version of their political movement or get co-opted into the mainstream institutional democratic politics of the respective countries across the world.
As the mainstream parties across democracies in Europe are facing public disaffection due to many factors, the green parties with an extremely relevant political narrative are gaining ground as a new entrant in the electoral fray.
Apart from the discourses of accountable governance stemming out of institutional politics in the form of green parties, down-up social movements to address climate change are also on the rise. For instance, the global movement called the “Fridays for Future” campaign, in which school students have skipped classes on Fridays and instead peacefully protest to emphasise the need for climate action. Another more radical movement called ‘Extinction Rebellion’ sweeping through countries like the UK and Germany aimed to bring political reforms by organising debt strikes against major banks that assist in financing the carbon economy. Not only such social movements, but institutions like the judiciary are also stepping up in combatting climate change threats in many countries. In Germany, for instance, the constitutional court stated in April 2021 that the initiatives taken by the then administration were inadequate for undertaking policy initiatives for a sustainable environment for the future, compelling the political actors to accelerate their climate action endeavours. In countries across Europe, Asia, and Australia, judicial intervention regarding climate change challenges has been increasingly visible, putting pressure on political actors for greater climate action.
The functioning and dynamics of representative governance across democracies are well-placed to increasingly play a pivotal role in addressing climate change challenges. Across the globe, institutions of democratic governance are exhibiting greater interest and involvement in the global pursuits for climate action. As the threats of climate change and its repercussions on the everyday lives of common people and their future are becoming a dominant part of public discourses, it is gaining increased momentum in the sphere of institutional politics. Although structures of representative politics and its inherent function of electoral mobilisation have structural challenges, climate change is gradually becoming a pivotal issue in the discourses of democratic politics across the world. Democratic institutions’ inherent resilience and capacity for initiating dialogue and deliberations, ensuring community-driven initiatives and building political consensus for designing responsive, efficient, and inclusive climate action policies, hold hope for the future.
Ambar Kumar Ghosh is an Associate Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation.
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Ambar Kumar Ghosh is an Associate Fellow under the Political Reforms and Governance Initiative at ORF Kolkata. His primary areas of research interest include studying ...
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