Populism Talks: Contemporary Drivers of the Decline in Climate Change Cooperation

• In Event: Democracy and Climate Stressors

Abstract

The issue of climate change has been annually negotiated at the international level under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) for well over 25 years. Yet, and despite this quarter century of continuous negotiation, international climate change negotiations not only have repeatedly fallen short in reaching a comprehensive climate change agreement but have also worsened in their cooperative progress. What explains the ever-increasing gap between routine negotiation over climate change and nation-states’ (in)abilities to reach effective and timely agreements on climate change? To answer this question, I posit that the recent global rise of right-wing populism has adversely influenced states’ abilities to reach climate change agreements. To test this proposition, I first apply a Structural Topic Model to UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COPs) speeches from the 16th to 25th COPs, as made by high-level country representatives. After extracting 25 topics from the speeches, I evaluate whether right-wing populism leads certain countries to negotiate over climate change in unique manners. I pair this automated text analysis with qualitative case studies and a quantitative analysis of actual policy outcomes. In each respect, I anticipate that right-wing populist leaders will express and exhibit less supportive stances towards climate change cooperation in favor of greater sovereignty-reinforcing stances, priorities, and policy outcomes.

Author

• Jiwon Nam, University of Delaware