Is democracy up to the task of climate action?

_{Vox Pops · What people think}

"Do you think democracies are better at addressing climate change?"

Climate change is already reshaping lives through floods, wildfires, drought, food shortages and water insecurity. Governments are expected to respond, but do so with varying political will and capacity. We wanted to understand why. We began with the assumption that democracy would play the main role. But what we found pushed us to look beyond that.

Many responses point in the same direction: democracy is often seen as a key driver of climate action. The idea makes intuitive sense — democratic governments are expected to be more accountable, transparent, and responsive to public pressure.

However, this assumption is increasingly being questioned. As Lars Tønder, Head of Department of Political Science and Public Management at the University of Southern Denmark, explains, "democracy is short-sighted… And that really collides with the idea that climate change is something where you have to think in generations or even longer." Democratic systems can also be seen as too slow: "people have to be heard… included… and compromise," potentially delaying urgent action.

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"The gap between knowing and acting is very small."

_{^{— Lars Tønder, University of Southern Denmark, on why climate-exposed countries act with urgency}}

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While democracies tend to perform better on average, they do not explain the full picture. Some countries perform better than expected while others fall behind, pointing to additional factors beyond democracy alone. By combining data on climate performance, political systems, and climate vulnerability, we examine not only whether democracy matters, but what other forces shape how countries respond.

Our findings suggest that exposure to climate risks plays a key role. In highly vulnerable contexts, climate change is no longer abstract. This potentially helps explain why some countries act more decisively, regardless of their political system.

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Research and main findings

^{Each dot is a country. X-axis: democratic governance (0–10). Y-axis: climate performance (0–100). Hover any dot to explore.}

We set out to find out if the type of government a country has determines how seriously it addresses climate change. To answer this, we merged four publicly available datasets and analysed 61 countries using three regression models: the Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI 2025), the Democracy Index (DI) 2024, the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative’s (ND-GAIN) Country Index 2024 for climate vulnerability, and World Bank GDP per capita data for 2024.

Countries scoring higher on democratic governance tended to score higher on climate performance. Our bivariate regression confirmed that a one-point increase on the Democracy Index predicts roughly 2.6 additional CCPI points. Across all three models, including controls for GDP, region, and vulnerability, this relationship remained positive and statistically significant. GDP per capita was consistently insignificant, suggesting political will matters more than financial capacity.

But the analysis also produced an unexpected finding. Climate vulnerability, measured using ND-GAIN scores capturing exposure to climate shocks, emerged as a strong, independent predictor of climate performance – even outweighing the impact of political systems on climate action in countries. This suggests that some countries facing more severe climate impacts tend to act more, regardless of their political system. This comes as the V-Dem Institute found democracy at its lowest level in over 50 years, with 72% of the world now living in autocracies, making our findings particularly striking.

This helps explain the most interesting patterns in our data. Morocco ranks 8th on the CCPI despite a Democracy Index score of 4.97, classifying it as a hybrid regime, and Pakistan similarly outperforms expectations. Meanwhile, the United States, scoring 7.85, ranks 57th, and Canada ranks even lower. Morocco and Pakistan face some of the highest vulnerability scores in our sample, while the US and Canada face far less structural pressure to act, and our model shows it.

The association between democracy and climate action is consistent and statistically significant across all models, but association is not causation. What the data does make clear is that governance systems are meaningfully associated with climate response. And when those systems fall short, climate pressure itself may step in.

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Denmark as the norm

Denmark has emerged as a leader in the green transition, with emissions falling significantly faster than the global average.

The CCPI's ranking reflects this. The first three rankings on the CCPI are intentionally left blank, a symbolic admission that no country, not even Denmark, currently meets the criteria to “prevent dangerous climate change.” Still, Denmark ranks 4th. Leadership in offshore wind, electric vehicle adoption, and pledges to move off fossil fuels are cited as key drivers for this according to the CCPI.

Tønder traces this not just to formal democratic institutions, but to how civil society mobilised around them. The 2019 Climate Act was, in his words, in large part, thanks to a democratic mobilisation of civil society that took it to the streets.” He also points to citizens' assemblies, which produce “very progressive proposals for how to address climate change." Populist climate-sceptic parties have not played the influential role they have elsewhere, though they made some gains in the 2026 parliamentary election.

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The Outliers: Morocco and Pakistan

Almost 3,000 kilometres further south lies Morocco, a constitutional monarchy where King Mohammed VI has held power since 1999. Freedom House cites constrained civil liberties, and the country is classified as a hybrid regime in the Democracy Index, where rule of law, political process, and press freedom remain insufficiently guaranteed.

Yet on climate policy, a different picture emerges. Dr. Daniel Lindvall, senior researcher at Uppsala University, confirms Morocco is moving ahead despite limited democracy: “In terms of affordable energy solutions, you can see some countries moving ahead that are not thatdemocratic, like Morocco or Pakistan. And I think this is not motivated, first and foremost, because of climate concerns, it's very much motivated by energy security aspects.”

Climate vulnerability also plays a key role. Rising temperatures are already driving droughts and water scarcity, with intensifying heatwaves projected according to a 2023 IEA report. Pakistan presents a similar case, having experienced devastating disasters including a 2022 flood that displaced millions. Tønder adds that living in places “incredibly exposed to the changes in climate” makes it “not just an abstract thing; it becomes a very real, concrete and material thing that changes your ability to grow crops, to harvest, to produce, to continue the life that you have had.”

What the data does make clear is that governance systems are meaningfully associated with climate response. And when those systems fall short, climate pressure itself may step in.

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"When those systems fall short, climate pressure itself appears to step in."

^{— Degrees & Democracies, key finding}

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_{Watch · Short-form summary}

The story in 60 seconds

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Degrees & Democracies

A data investigation by Kristin Engel, Mathias Huber, and Sherehan Elazazy.Erasmus Mundus Master's in Journalism, Media and Globalisation — DMJX / Aarhus University

Data: CCPI 2025 · EIU Democracy Index 2024 · ND-GAIN 2023 · World Bank GDP 2024.

Statistical analysis in R (tidyverse, ggplot2). Observational study — findings are associational, not causal.