Description
Climate change and biodiversity loss are the two existential issues of our era, and simultaneously, the number of populists elected is rising. In the lifetime of the UNFCCC and the CBD - the only global forums for state-led negotiations on climate and biodiversity - roughly 1/3 of states have been populist-led, representing significant political and economic influence. And by the CBD’s and UNFCCC’s own metrics, the negotiations have failed - emissions are now 36% higher, and 30% of biodiversity has been lost. It is therefore crucial to understand how populists interact with these two negotiations, and how this differs between the two, including between right and left-wing populists. The literature has explored the most headline-grabbing populist interventions: Trump withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, and Bolsonaro’s withdrawal from hosting COP25 - but literature concerning populist’s behaviour beyond this is sparse, not exhaustive of all populists across all COPs, and not comparative between the UNFCCC and CBD.
My paper will present the preliminary results of my PhD. I have conducted a quantitative analysis of delegations and ratification timelines, a content analysis of the negotiation reports to code populist’s positions and behaviour, and interviews to understand the ‘insiders perspective’ for populist behaviour.
