Why Climate Action Is Crucial To Democracy
By: Dave Olsen
Tags: Climate Change, Environment, Democracy, Inequality, Politics

Why Climate Action Is Crucial To Democracy

Trust in democracy is at its lowest in 25 years. There are many factors, but here’s why one of the most significant is climate inaction.

Photo by Callum Shaw on Unsplash

People simply do not trust democracy, their representatives, and their governments anymore. In America, 75% of adults believe that trust in the federal government has been shrinking. And across developed countries, dissatisfaction with democracy stands at 58%, up 10% from 25 years ago.

There are, naturally, the standard, consensus theories about why.

Most political scientists would tell you that there are two key reasons: trends, and events.

Events are probably what you might have heard cited for the current lack of trust in politics most frequently. The Iraq war had a catastrophic impact on the electorate’s trust in politicians to be truthful, as did the expenses scandal in 2009 in the UK, where The Telegraph revealed the rather shocking abuse of power for monetary gain by MPs.

More recently, the Syrian migrant crisis and the varying political reactions to it have fuelled a sense that governments don’t serve their own people properly.

Trends deal mainly with how politics is conducted and how politicians go about their business, as well as long-term market patterns. The migrant crisis and the reaction to it have helped to fuel the trend of increasingly populist politics, which is characteristic of the wider political realignment through which we are going.

This realignment is occurring both because left-wing ideas are becoming more and more unpopular, and because people’s trust in politicians to keep their word is declining.

In terms of the economy, while it seems to be, on surface level, performing well, most of the world’s democracies (usually wealthier countries) are struggling with increased inequality as a result of the 1980s takeover of the New Right and the more pernicious aspects of it, some of which still remain today.

Inequality creates social divisions and increases tensions, which has led to what many believe to be a culture war. Brexit and Trump’s election, say many commentators, are simply the result of this culture war.

However, despite all of these significant factors, climate inaction has played a much greater role than most would have you believe.

Trust in democracy was already fairly low 25 years ago. Nearly 50% didn’t trust democracy, and most were the typical disengaged group — the poor, ethnic minorities, former miners, and so on. The change, then, must have been fuelled to a great extent by a decline in trust from those who were more engaged in politics, and who care about the big issues of their time.

The failure to effectively deal — or even to try to deal — with arguably the greatest threat to our long-term prosperity has surely played a crucial role in the declining pattern of trust in democracy and politics. Whether you think climate change really is that threatening or not, the perception of it is that it could lead to disaster — more than 80% in the UK class it as very or fairly threatening.

Therefore, the electorate, and particularly those who currently feel most frustrated by the inaction, are not seeing solutions which match the scale of the problem, as they perceive it. This is undoubtedly playing a key role in the decline in trust in democracy. As we miss targets in international agreements, this is only getting worse.

The UK, though, is currently experimenting with a climate change citizens’ assembly, one of the key demands of Extinction Rebellion. This could allow citizens to feel more engaged with the process, and will surely lead to some significant political action. Perhaps this will be the best way to restore trust on what is increasingly a pivotal issue, a bellwether of belief in politics.

Trust in democracy isn’t just a story of ignorance anymore. It’s a story of how politicians are letting down those who care deeply about political issues — and this new fault line is alarming. As representative democracy fails, deliberative democracy may present the way forward.