Four Steps to Decarbonize Our Democracy

Even before the pandemic, the slogan “trust the science” was a viral plea for governments to listen to the scientific consensus on climate change. However, policymakers have not just discounted the science. They have also disregarded communities.

To enrich a select few, the government has jeopardized billions. This inequality is precisely why the U.S. is struggling to reduce its carbon emissions. To decarbonize the economy, we have to decarbonize our democracy, addressing the inefficiency and unresponsiveness that has become all too familiar.

Here are four necessary political reforms for climate action:

1. Democratize

Our current election system has out-of-control spending, gerrymandering and low government approval. Alongside campaign finance reforms, adopting Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV) will allow environmental champions to win votes and represent the planet in public debates.

In most American elections, voters pick one candidate at a time. In RCV, voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate is the first choice of a majority of voters, then votes for the least supported candidate will move to those voters’ second choice. RCV means voters can pick from multiple candidates and communicate their genuine preferences without fear that they are throwing away their vote.

In the United States, over 10 million voters in the already use Ranked-Choice Voting in elections. With a greater diversity of options, the establishment and incumbent candidates would have to respond to and contend with environmentalist candidates that are often eliminated in the primaries.

2. Depolarize

In American elections, candidates compete in gerrymandered districts where the winner takes all. This forces voters and legislators to rally around the strongest two candidates and is why we have a two-party system. Without the potential to win a majority of voters, smaller parties are unable to gain any representation.

In other countries, candidates are elected according to Proportional Representation (PR). Under PR, if a party wins only 25% of the vote, they still win 25% of the seats. No vote is wasted. Because smaller parties can still win, voters can support smaller parties that reflect their individual stance on the political spectrum.

A winner-takes-all approach is inherently polarizing. It cuts down the middle, splitting legislatures into two parties and is prone to dysfunction as a result. In multi-party legislatures, parties cannot achieve a majority on their own and cannot easily coordinate to block the other party. Parties build coalitions around individual issues and can more easily pass popular policies like carbon taxes, cap and trade systems and gun control.

Dozens of other countries have proportional representation and tend to have stronger environmental protections. Proportional representation systems have, on average, twice as much renewable energy, were faster to implement the Kyoto protocol and are far more likely to have major parties that focus on sustainability, feminism and other progressive causes.

3. Deliberate

While improving elections is crucial, we will have to go even further to include our communities in policy creation. Deliberative democracy is when residents can propose government action, debate issues and make decisions themselves.

Urban planners have long relied on participatory planning, where community input shapes the design of cities. After consulting with thousands of community members, Richmond’s master plan, Richmond 300, has centered community voices and lived experiences in planning for sustainability, housing, transportation and social justice. In October 2019, Richmond City Council passed a resolution calling for $15 million each year to be set aside for participatory funding where residents could propose potential projects and vote on which to fund. Participatory funding initiatives exist in thousands of other cities around the world.

However, three years later and this participatory funding initiative has not been implemented in Richmond yet. Activists and sustainability stakeholders should continue fighting for participatory funding and to fully fund Richmond 300. Climate activists have made larger inroads with communities than with the electoral system. We need these tools to decrease emissions at a municipal level.

4. Decolonize

Resource extraction, water pollution and industrial toxins disproportionately affect Indigenous communities. Spanning the states of New Mexico, Utah and Arizona, the most populous tribe in the U.S., the Navajo Nation, lives in a territory larger than West Virginia where residents are twice as likely to live near an oil and gas facility. In a 2019 federal screening for uranium poisoning, a quarter of Navajo women and babies had high levels of radioactive metal in their bodies, leading to a high prevalence of cancer, kidney failure, birth complications, and congenital disorders.

As a result of federal policy, multi-national corporations have poisoned Indigenous communities and dominated the legal systems governing them. Decolonization is the struggle for Indigenous sovereignty, land and culture. Under Secretary Deb Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe, the U.S. Department of the Interior has taken steps to return stolen land and reduce environmental contamination. Congressman A. Donald McEachin (VA-04) and Congressman Raúl M. Grijalva (AZ-03) have also proposed the Environmental Justice for All Act to address environmental racism.

Multibillion dollar energy companies, nevertheless, spurn land rights and bribe elected leaders and law enforcement to continue degrading natural resources. This forces Indigenous activists to risk their lives for clean air, land and water. Protecting the earth will require halting the persistent force of colonialism and supporting Indigenous stewardship of the environment.

Decarbonize

In the face of wildfires, rising oceans and melting ice caps, the evidence for climate change is no longer dubious; the evidence for the political status quo is. A dying world does not afford our democracy illusions of immortality or perfection.

If the long list of wars caused by shortages of land, food and water are any indication, climate change will cause political crises and democratic breakdowns all across the world. Whether we like it or not, our democracy will change.

If we act today to modernize the democratic process, the climate movement will have the tools to heal a planet and a nation in crisis.