Extreme weather events have not led to major political shifts, according to a study by a Concordia University researcher. And the author is “skeptical” about the possibility of a change in the attitude of governments.
“In January 2020, [tout le monde parlait des] Australia’s largest wildfires in history. This coincided with the period when countries were supposed to submit new climate targets to the UN under the Paris Agreement,” before the timeline was changed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Despite “very severe fires, which have drawn global attention to Australia’s climate policy, even under these conditions, […] the Australian government has announced that it will not increase its already ‘insufficient’ climate policy targets,” notes Sam Rowan, assistant professor of political science at Concordia University.
” There is [pourtant] several good reasons to think that climate shocks would encourage governments to be more reactive”, judges the specialist. But the “increased media attention”, the “concern [grandissante] of the population”, and the economic costs that these events generate are not enough.
Mobilization within society is really going to become one of the main drivers of climate action.
To arrive at this finding, Mr. Rowan analyzed a sample of climate shocks and natural disasters that occurred between 1990 and 2018. He then checked whether significant policy reforms had been undertaken in the following three years. Result: meteorological shocks, their accumulation and their intensification over time have “no effect on the policy of mitigating climate change”, can we read in the study published last October. Adaptation policies are not analyzed here.
A vain mobilization?
Sam Rowan acknowledges that “conditions on the ground have changed” since the 1990s, notably with the signing of the Paris Agreement in 2015 and the presence in power of “more climate-friendly governments”, which gives hope for changes . But he remains “skeptical” that future extreme weather events are “on their own, catalysts” for progress.
According to him, the reforms will rather be “the importance of climate policy in electoral debates and public opinion”. Several current approaches are “accelerating climate action, and I think this trend will continue. [… Mais] we must ensure that political parties present climate change as a major issue in their programmes. »
Thus, the professor reassures: the conclusion he draws in his study “does not mean that there will never be any political action”. On the contrary, the scientific literature shows that in Europe, extreme weather events have led to more protests. “Mobilization within society is really going to become one of the main drivers of climate action. “It remains to find where it blocks, launches the academic, who will be the subject of his next research.
Scientific studies also show that climate disasters lead to more votes for green parties, says Rowan. A phenomenon that is still difficult to generalize, but which fits more easily into political systems of proportional representation, he adds.
However, government allegiance is not everything. The analysis carried out by the researcher did not make it possible to conclude that more left-wing parties, which were in power during the disasters, “were no longer active in terms of climate policies”, specifies Sam Rowan, in an interview with the Duty.
This content is produced in collaboration with Concordia University.