What is the relationship between democracy and the environment? 

Wealthy democracies vary on their responses to climate change but are generally expected to be better at protecting the rights of those most at risk from environmental threats (Burnell, 2012). Where deliberative mechanisms exist, citizens have more outlets to voice their opinions and push for environmental protection (Fischer, 2018). Similarly, where there is media freedom and freedom of association, opportunities exist to organise and increase public awareness of climate change (Povitkina, 2018). For example, in the 156 countries studied by Caravannis (2021), countries with higher degrees of political freedom were found to feature stronger environmental performance.

Despite this, the relationship between democracy and environmental outcomes may be complicated. Critics argue that democracy is based on finding a compromise among competing interests, some of which may go against environmental objectives, making the prospects for ambitious environmental policy more challenging (Fischer, 2018). Alternatively, electoral cycles may discourage the longer-term policies needed for environmental protection (Povitkina, 2018).

While it is difficult to argue that democracies are unequivocally better in addressing environmental problems, there is strong evidence that suggests that democracies generally have better environmental performance than non-democracies or autocracies (Fiorino, 2018; Li and Reuveny, 2006).

Access to credible environmental data

This is at the heart of environmental democracy as it allows policymakers and the private sector to manage environmental issues, and also allows civil society and other groups to ensure governments are accountable and policies are implemented effectively. If data is not available, the rights of marginalised or vulnerable populations, such as indigenous groups, may be at risk.

The right to information is enshrined in the Rio Declaration (1992), Aarhus Convention (1998) and the more recent Ezcazu Agreement (2018) in Latin America, as well as in the Paris Agreement’s (2015) Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF) which requires countries to submit NDC reports with clear, transparent and quantifiable information about progress.

In the private sector, reporting initiatives can increase access to credible environmental data. For example, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) promotes good governance in oil, gas, and mineral resources industries worldwide. High transparency in environmental reporting enhances accountability of extractive industry stakeholders, and at the same time promotes democratic practices like civil society participation and involvement of communities in local governance (Robinson, 2022).

Political voice and multi-stakeholder coalitions

Political voice and environmental action

Democracies need ways for citizens and organisations to communicate their needs, preferences, and experiences and to hold government accountable for their actions. Collectively, this is called ‘political voice’. Political voices and coalitions can help address environmental problems by raising citizens’ concerns and holding governments accountable. To do so, political voices need to be more inclusive and aware on climate change. Find out more about the role of political voice and coalitions in this blog.

It is therefore important to strengthen channels for political voice to influence governments – either directly (through affecting policymaking) or indirectly (by influencing the selection of policymakers). This may include democratic innovation in the form of mechanisms such as climate assemblies or wider stakeholder consultations. Media, political coalitions and civil society organisations all have a role to play. 

Political parties

Political parties can help strengthen environmental democracy through mediating public preferences and political voices, by holding government accountable on environmental actions, and through party competition. But there is a need for more awareness of environmental issues and policy responses to climate change among political parties – that is where international support can help.

What role do political parties play?

Strengthening existing political parties and safeguarding the ability to form new ones is important for environmental democracy. This is because:

• Political parties respond to, and shape, public attitudes. This may involve raising the profile of environmental concerns, increasing public awareness and/or deciding which specific issues make it to the political agenda and which do not (Green-Petersen and Mortensen, 2010; Green-Petersen, 2019).
• Political parties can also directly influence the level of ambition of policy by shaping the strategic direction and content of policies, for example through legislation.
• Competition between political parties can also influence environmental policies. This may be because voters are given a greater choice of parties to vote for, so parties may increase the ambition of environmental policies to attract votes (Rohrschneider and Miles, 2015).
• However, competition between political parties may complicate political processes and lead to ineffective policy compromises in polarised societies (Ladrech and Little, 2019).

Across the world, there has been an increase in the number and importance of green parties, including in several emerging economics. For example, Colombia’s Green Alliance holds nine seats in both the lower and upper houses of Congress, along with several key mayoral positions. However, this is not a uniform trend, with weak/no green party representation in democratic states like Norway, or across Asia and the Middle East (McBride, 2022).

However, this does not necessarily translate to more ambitious climate policies. The Climate Performance Index (2021) rated climate policies from 57 states and the EU, and saw many democratic countries with declining climate policy scores.

Political parties have an important role to play in safeguarding the key pillars of democracy and advancing the environmental agenda. Yet, when countries look to spend money on environment and development projects overseas, political parties are often overlooked. It is important that foreign aid programmes consider the role of political parties and include interventions to strengthen their positive influence on environmental issues. Equally, the environmental agenda should be part of democracy assistance programmes targeting political parties.  

Political accountability and access to justice

Research has found that strong accountability and political oversight mechanisms are expected to lead to better environmental performance, and vice versa.

In democracies, generally the national executive branch is accountable to legislative and judicial bodies, as well as to expert bodies and citizens. This form of parliamentary oversight is a central element of many climate change and environmental laws. For example, in Colombia the President is required to report to Parliament on progress in implementing target committed to under the Paris Agreement ahead of reporting to the United Nations. Some laws establish consequences for non-compliance, such as financial penalties (e.g. in Taiwan, Croatia and Kenya).

There is also a growing role of judicial oversight, as the number of cases challenging government inaction or lack of ambition on climate policy continues to grow (Setzer and Higham, 2021). In Kenya, for example, the climate change law guarantees the right of any citizen to bring complaints related to adaptation and mitigation to court.

Measures overseeing climate performance by governments therefore need to be strengthened. 

International development assistance helps drive sustainable development and environmental projects. At the same time, it can support democracy and democratic transition. This section discusses how an environmental democracy approach can bridge these priorities, including some of the barriers to this.

Foreign aid and democracy

In general, international donors tend to favour recipients that adopt “good” policies and have some democratic characteristics (Robertsen et al., 2015). In international democracy support, donors favour countries that are not backsliding into authoritarianism. Recent research shows democracy aid tends to be more effective in countries that are already undergoing democratisation compared to aid targeting prevention of authoritarian backsliding (Niño-Zarazúa et al., 2020).

Strengthening democracy and enabling democratic transition has been among the key objectives of multiple donors and development finance institutions. For example, strengthening good governance and promoting democratic values are among the key strategic objectives of development assistance provided by the US,  the largest bilateral aid donor (USAID, 2018).

However, there are challenges – namely in maintaining neutrality across politics, race, religion and ideology (Van Mierop, 2015).

The environmental democracy approach and foreign aid

In many countries, international development assistance has helped address domestic environmental issues and support implementation of global environmental agreements.

However, there is significant potential to integrate democracy and climate adaptation objectives in these recipient countries to achieve better climate resilience. For example, targeting local level institutions in adaptation finance has been shown lead to fairer transition, preventing inequalities and exclusion (Colenbrander et al. 2018).

Expert interviews conducted for this study showed high recognition within environmental experts of the need to focus on programmes which address governance and political failures. Frequently cited reasons for this include lack of political will, short-termism and weak accountability.

Despite this, few interviewed experts were familiar with the concept of “environmental democracy”. Most preferred a simpler framing, which would be more widely understood, such as “environmental or climate change governance”, or focusing on the separate components of environmental democracy.

Reinforcing these core pillars of environmental governance can in turn also lead to stronger democracies. Environmental governance acts as an entry point for more implementing more democratic priorities and mobilising citizen action.

Below are several key quotes from interviews with experts which demonstrate this.

What are the barriers to integrating environmental governance into foreign aid?

Although interviewees showed growing recognition of the importance of dealing with governance failures in relation to climate change, this study identified three significant barriers to improving how well environmental democracy interventions were integrated into development co-operation on environmental issues. Broadly speaking, they are related to knowledge gaps and framing in donor agencies; inadequate funding strategies and cycles, with short-term funding cycles, siloed development funding, an overall strategic deficit and measurement and reporting. For example, measurement systems for environmental and climate change programmes are too focused on indicators related to physical output and emission reductions.

A knowledge gap exists around how to effectively measure governance change in environmental programmes, as well as how to include relevant indicators in the reporting systems.

How can these barriers be overcome?

Despite these challenges, the recognition of environmental democracy in international agreements such as the Rio Declaration, Aarhus Convention and Ezcazu Agreement provides a solid basis for incorporating environmental governance into development co-operation.

Evidence is growing about how integrating governance priorities into technical environmental programmes can help increase the effectiveness and sustainability of the interventions. Examples are emerging on the explicit integration of environment and governance, human rights and democracy objectives at the strategic level into foreign aid and on the use of the longer-term theories of change.

For example, Sweden’s strategy for regional development co-operation in Asia and the Pacific region (2016-2021) notes:

 “Activities are to be conducted in a manner that strengthens the ability of regional actors to integrate an environmental and climate perspective into programmes related to human rights, democracy and gender equality, and that strengthens regional actors’ efforts to promote respect for human rights, greater opportunities for democratic participation and gender mainstreaming into programmes related to environment, climate and natural resources”

To address the climate and environmental crises effectively, a tangible impact must be made on governance systems. Development co-operation decisionmakers must therefore:

• Launch dialogues or joint action groups to exchange experiences around the challenges and best practice to design, implement, oversee and measure impact for blended programming and gather examples on how integration has worked in different sectors and political contexts. These should include donor agencies, implementing institutions, civil society, local partners and academic experts.
• Improve understanding about the importance of governance as an issue within climate change and environmental agenda among the senior development co-operation leadership.
• Introduce cross-cutting objectives into development co-operation strategies and explicitly articulate the value of working politically and working on governance in a democratic way in the context of the climate and environment development co-operation programmes.
• Tap into experiences of the country offices and embassies in the development of overarching strategic priorities and programming at the regional and the global level.

For the full list of recommendations, please see the report.

The full study is available to download in PDF format. If you need another format, please email comms@wfd.org.