Criticism #1: “Unlike authoritarian governments, which can impose top-down climate protection, democracies shy away from drastic climate-protection policies.”
It is true that climate action requires a cross-generational policy approach. In this context, there is a widespread belief that autocracies enjoy long-term stability and can therefore ensure consistent climate protection. At first glance, autocratic governments appear to have an advantage because they can prescribe climate-protection measures regardless of voter attitudes, while in democracies climate policy is sometimes forced to take a back seat when other issues are at the forefront of public attention.
However, it would be premature to conclude that democracies are unable to implement ambitious, long-term climate-protection measures. If we shift our focus to the potential of civic engagement and the free formation of opinions, a different picture emerges. Critical thinking
and a highly educated populace have produced social movements in Western democracies that have been calling for environmental and climate protection since the 1980s. The most recent example is the Fridays for Future Initiative, based on which European democracies have shown that they are capable of ambitious climate policy. In that vein, the new EU Commission has announced the European Green Deal, which aims to
achieve a climate-neutral Europe by 2050. This goal has already had an impact on the EU’s Multiannual Financial Framework, increasing the budget share for climate protection from 20% to 30%.
Democracies also enable climate policy action at other levels: in the US, individual cities and states promote climate protection regardless of the Trump administration’s policies. It is expected that these efforts will reduce national emissions by 25% by 2030 (compared to 2005 levels). This is only possible due to the decision- and policy-making powers of sub-national entities in the US – something which seems impossible in centralised, autocratic systems.
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