Does Politics Impact Carbon Emissions?

Do political variables influence long-term environmental transitions? The discussion on the determinants of the environmental performance of countries has been dominated by a focus on the Environmental Kuznets curve. This concept concentrated primarily on the role of economic factors, in particular per capita income levels. By contrast, we outline both conceptually and empirically how political factors can affect long-term carbon trajectories. Our findings from an error-correction model suggest that political factors are an important explanatory variable for carbon emissions in over 100 countries during the period 1970-2004. The results show that political capacity reduces carbon emission in OECD countries whereas political constraints, democracy and the Kyoto Protocol reduce long-term carbon emission in the group of all countries as well as in non-OECD countries.