The forthcoming article “Global harms, local profits: How the uneven costs of natural disasters affect support for green political platforms” by Silvia Pianta and Paula Rettl is summarized by the author(s) below.
A common view in studies of climate politics is that when people personally experience natural disasters—such as fires, floods, or droughts—they become more aware of the costs imposed by climate change and therefore more supportive of environmental protection. In our new paper, Global Harms, Local Profits: How the Uneven Costs of Natural Disasters Affect Support for Green Political Platforms, we take a closer look at this view by examining how natural disasters shape support for green political platforms when they generate not only losses for affected populations but also economic opportunities.
In Brazil, large-scale fires create a range of hazards and losses: they increase rates of respiratory and cardiovascular disease and reduce the economic returns of sustainable logging. Yet these same fires can also create profit opportunities. By destroying natural vegetation and “clearing” land, they facilitate land grabbing and the expansion of agricultural commodity production in protected areas.
Using detailed data on fire exposure and voting outcomes for Marina Silva—the major green candidate in Brazil—we find that, on average, exposure to large-scale fires in the week before the 2018 presidential election increased her vote share by about 1.6 percentage points. But this boost was far from universal. In areas where many people work in cattle ranching or soy production, the pattern reversed: fire-affected municipalities became less supportive of the green candidate.
Survey data help us understand why. We show that changes in voting behavior are likely driven by perceived trade-offs between carbon-intensive economic development and the protection of natural vegetation. Respondents exposed to fires generally became more skeptical of the idea that “Amazon fires are necessary for economic growth.” However, in municipalities with large shares of workers in cattle or soy production, fire exposure actually made people more likely to agree with that statement.
Our main takeaway is that as climate change makes natural disasters more frequent, electorates will not automatically demand stronger environmental policies. Instead, climate change is already intensifying distributive conflicts—shaping who gains, who loses, and ultimately how much support exists for climate mitigation in democratic systems.
About the Author(s): Silvia Pianta is a Junior Scientist at the RFF-CMCC European Institute on Economics and the Environment and a fellow at the GREEN Research Center at Bocconi University and Paula Rettl is an Assistant Professor in the Business, Government and the International Economy Unit at the Harvard Business School. Their research “Global harms, local profits: How the uneven costs of natural disasters affect support for green political platforms“ is now available in Early View and will appear in a forthcoming issue of the American Journal of Political Science.