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(THE CONVERSATION.) Many countries around the globe are becoming less democratic. This backsliding on democracy and “creeping authoritarianism,” as the U.S. State Department puts it, is often supported by the same industries that are escalating climate change.
In my new book, “Global Burning: Rising Antidemocracy and the Climate Crisis,” I lay out connections between these industries and the politicians who are both stalling action on climate change and diminishing democracy.
It’s a dangerous shift, both for representative government and for the future climate.
Corporate capture of environmental politics
In democratic systems, elected leaders are expected to protect the public’s interests, including from exploitation by corporations. This is done primarily by implementing policies that secure public goods such as clean air, unpolluted water, and protect the welfare of people such as decent working conditions and minimum wage. In recent decades, however, this core democratic principle of prioritizing citizens over corporate profits was aggressively undermined.
Today, it’s easy to find political leaders – on both the political right and left – working on behalf of corporations in energy, finance, agribusiness, technology, military and pharmaceutical sectors, and not always in the public interest. Multinational companies fund their political careers and election campaigns to keep these leaders in office.
In the U.S., this relationship was cemented by the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United. This decision allowed corporations and wealthy donors to spend almost unlimited amounts to support candidates that best served their interests. Data shows that candidates receiving the most outside funding win. This has led to increased corporate influence on politicians, and party policies.
When it comes to the political parties, it’s easy to find examples of campaign finance fueling political agendas.
Both the Republican and Democratic parties took climate science seriously in 1988 when NASA scientist James Hansen testified to a U.S. Senate panel about the greenhouse effect. However, this attitude quickly diverged. Since the 1990s, conservative candidates have been heavily funded by the energy sector. This has allowed them to push their interests and help reduce regulations for the fossil fuel industry. This has allowed the growth of fossil fuel production, which has led to dangerously high CO2 emissions.
The industry’s power in shaping policy plays out in examples like the coalition of 19 Republican state attorneys general and coal companies suing to block the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.
At the same time that the energy sector has sought to influence policies on climate change, it has also worked to undermine the public’s understanding of climate science. ExxonMobil spent over US$30 million to lobbyists, think tanks, and researchers to support climate-science skepticism. Records show that ExxonMobil was involved in a wide-ranging climate-science denial effort for years. These efforts continue today. A 2019 report showed that the five largest oil corporations had spent more than $1B on misleading climate-related lobbying, and branding campaigns over three years.
The energy industry has in effect monopolized the democratic political process, and prevented the enactment effective climate policies.
Corporate interests have also fueled an increase in antidemocratic leaders with well-financed resources who are willing and able to stall existing climate policies and regulations. These political leaders’ tactics have escalated public health crises, and in some cases, human rights abuses.
Brazil, Australia, and USA
Many governments that are deeply antidemocratic are tied to oil, natural gas, and other extractive industries that are driving global climate change, such as Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iran, Iraq, and China.
In “Global Burning,” I explore how three leaders of traditionally democratic countries – Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, Scott Morrison of Australia and Donald Trump in the U.S. – came to power on anti-environment and nationalist platforms appealing to an extreme-right populist base and extractive corporations that are driving climate change. Although each country’s political landscape is unique, there are important commonalities between the three leaders.
Trump, Morrison, Bolsonaro all depend on extractive companies to fund their electoral campaigns or get reelected.
For instance, Bolsonaro’s power depends on support from a powerful right-wing association of landowners and farmers called the União Democrática Ruralista, or UDR. This association represents the interests of foreign investors, specifically the multibillion-dollar mining/agribusiness sectors. Bolsonaro pledged that if elected, he would eliminate environmental protections and open, for the sake of economic progress, industrial-scale soybean cultivation and cattle grazing within the Amazon rainforest. Both are contributing to climate change and deforestation of a fragile region that is crucial for carbon removal.
Bolsonaro and Morrison are all openly skeptical about climate science. It is not surprising that all three have ignored, weakened, or demolished environmental protection regulations. That led to an acceleration in deforestation and large swathes of Amazon rainforest being burned in Brazil.
In Australia, Morrison’s government ignored widespread public and scientific opposition and opened the controversial Adani Carmichael mine, one of the largest coal mines in the world. As sea temperatures rise and ports expand along the coast, the mine could have a negative impact on public health and the climate.
Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement – a move opposed by a majority of Americans – rolled back over 100 laws meant to protect the environment and opened national parks to fossil fuel drilling and mining.
Notably, all three leaders have sometimes worked together to oppose international efforts to stop climate changes. At the United Nations climate talks in Spain in 2019, Costa Rica’s minister for environment and energy at the time, Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, blamed Brazil, Australia and the U.S. for blocking efforts to tackle climate injustice linked to global warming.
These responses to climate changes are not unique to Brazil, Australia, and the U.S. Similar convergences have occurred around the world of antidemocratic leaders who receive funding from extractive corporations and implement anti-environment laws that protect corporate profits. These leaders are now using state power to grab corporate land to build dams, dig mines, and lay pipelines.
Trump, for example, supported the deployment the National Guard to disperse Native Americans as well as environmental activists protesting Dakota Access Pipeline. This was a project he had personally invested in. His administration also proposed harsher penalties against pipeline protesters. This was similar to legislation that was promoted by the American Legislative Exchange Council. The council’s members include lobbyists and lawmakers for the oil industry. Similar anti-protest laws have been enacted in several Republican-led States.
Bolsonaro’s leadership, Brazil has altered laws to encourage land grabbers to force small farmers and Indigenous people out of their rainforest land.
What can people do to stop it?
There are many things people can do for democracy and the climate.
Reduced forest destruction and the replacement of fossil fuels can reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A recent U.N. climate report found that the biggest obstacles to reducing greenhouse gas emissions are the refusal of national leaders to regulate fossil fuel corporations and plan for renewable energy production.
As I see it, the only way forward is for voters to reverse the trend towards authoritarianism in the world, just as Slovenia did in April 2022. They also need to push for renewable energy and a replacement of fossil fuels. People can exercise their democratic rights by voting out anti-environment governments, whose power is based on prioritizing extractive capital over the best interests for their citizens.
This article is republished under Creative Commons license from The Conversation. You can read the original article here. https://theconversation.com/rising-authoritarianism-and-worsening-climate-change-share-a-fossil-fueled-secret-181012.
