2025/08/05 by Patricia Bromley, Jared Furuta, Evan Schofer · 1 voice
Environmental Science · Social Sciences · #Sustainability and Climate Change Governance #Climate Change and Geoengineering #Social Science and Policy Research
paper · pdf · doi:10.1080/09644016.2025.2538360
Democracy is thought to play a key role in protecting the environment: in theory, free elections and civil rights allow citizens to hold political leaders accountable, which should then lead to stronger environmental protections. Despite its conceptual appeal, empirical evidence that democratic contexts produce stronger pro-environmental outcomes has been inconclusive. We focus on an overlooked factor – the average level of education in a country – to help explain the heterogeneous effects of democracy on carbon emissions. Using multilevel panel regression models of 155 countries from 1990 to 2019, we find that democracy is associated with reduced carbon emissions at the national level when a country’s population has higher overall levels of education. Education, we contend, increases participation in formal and informal political channels, increases media literacy and scientific knowledge, and shapes pro-environmental preferences, which enable democracies to more effectively promote pro-environmental change.