Green for the Right reasons? How government ideology shapes preferences over climate change negotiations in the Global South

Abstract

Research on the drivers of foreign policy regarding climate change negotiations has extensively delved into the effects of risks and mitigation costs, as well as the relevance of interest groups such as civil society organizations or carbon-intensive industries. However, the role of governments’ ideological orientation has been neglected in most quantitative studies. Building upon an original dataset consisting of 1194 statements at the Conference of the Parties within multilateral climate change negotiations from 2010 to 2018, this paper addresses the impact of government ideology on the negotiating position of developing countries. Despite previous academic work that assert that left-wing governments are more likely to adopt pro-environment stances, I argue that this is only the case in developed countries. Results suggest that the effect of ideology is different in the Global South, where right-wing pluralist governments are more likely to adopt ambitious positions in climate change negotiations than left-wing executives as well as populist leaders.