Confronting Our Common Enemy

Lazar and Wallace make a compelling case that, although climate disasters undercut democratic legitimacy, "authoritarianism is not the answer." The authors of this essay agree, but do not view regime type as the primary constraint on climate-policy outcomes. Here, the authors draw on research on political institutions and climate policy to highlight two overlooked features of the conversation. First, even if democracy is better on average in addressing climate change, there is a lot of variation: Procarbon interests can capture the process in both autocracies and democracies, sometimes to very similar degrees. Second, there are dangerous feedback effects between climate change and democracy, because climate-induced instability can destabilize democracies, reduce the likelihood that green policies will work, and even prompt repression.