Partisan Alignments and Climate Policy: Reassessing Ideological Effects on CO₂ Emissions

This study explores how left-right partisan orientations influence climate mitigation, focusing on per capita CO₂ emissions in 120 countries from 1990 to 2018. Employing advanced quantitative methods, including time-series cross-sectional analyses, and multiple measures of political ideology, it finds that left-leaning governments can be more effective at lowering emissions, although under specific socioeconomic and institutional conditions. Socioeconomic and institutional variations shape the extent to which ideological commitments translate into tangible mitigation. This underscores that partisan alignment alone is insufficient for sustained climate progress; broader structural contexts remain pivotal. These findings deepen our understanding of how political orientations interact with national settings to affect environmental performance. They highlight the conditional nature of ideology, guiding future research on how partisanship can support more effective, context-sensitive climate policies.