The influence of political ideology on greenhouse gas emissions

This research tests the casual link from political ideology to national greenhouse gas emissions by utilizing multinational panel data covering 98 countries during the period 1990-2016. Overall, the baseline results and robustness tests show a political divide on national greenhouse gas emissions, whereby compared to right-wing governments, left-wing governments are more likely to exhibit less carbon dioxide emissions. We further explore this topic from the perspectives of energy efficiency and education. Three-stage OLS regressions suggest that leftist parties increase energy efficiency and spend more on secondary education, which lead to less greenhouse gas emissions. We also introduce the interaction between political ideology and economic performance as well as globalization to test the moderating effects of economic performance and globalization. The study further looks into the interaction effects of political ideology and democracies on greenhouse gas emissions by dividing the whole sample into two sub-samples. The results indicate that the ideology effect on greenhouse gas emissions varies among countries with different economic performances or different degrees of political globalization, as well as between democracies and non-democracies.

Automated summary

This research examines the relationship between political ideology and national greenhouse gas emissions using multinational panel data from 98 countries between 1990 and 2016. The results indicate that left-wing governments tend to have lower carbon dioxide emissions compared to right-wing governments. The study also highlights the role of energy efficiency and education, showing that leftist parties promote energy efficiency and allocate more funds to secondary education, resulting in reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, the moderating effects of economic performance, globalization, and political systems on the relationship between political ideology and emissions are explored.