EPG Seminar Series

Environmental Politics and Governance (EPG) Online seminar series at the Department of Social Policy, LSE.

We will being holding in-person viewings at LSE, with some presentations also happening in-person. If you would like to attend these, please indicate interest here.

For any questions related to the seminar series, please email the academic organiser Dr Liam Beiser-McGrath.

2025/26 Seminar Series Schedule

Session 1: 16th October, 4.30pm-5.30pm, OLD 2.21

Energy Transitions and Political Transformation: Evidence from the Shale Oil Revolution
Christian Baehr (Princeton University)

An outstanding question in climate politics is how governments will respond to fiscal pressures created by a global transition to clean energy production. This transition is expected to exert sustained downward pressure on fossil fuel prices. I exploit the emergence of the U.S. shale oil industry in 2010 as an exogenous and durable supply shock to evaluate the domestic political effects of long-run oil price declines. The shale oil revolution introduced a significant new source of "light, sweet" crude oil to markets, sharply reducing global oil prices, particularly for crude grades more easily substituted by shale oil. I argue that persistent oil revenue shortfalls driven by lower prices reshape distributional conflicts in oil-exporting states, compelling governments to adopt institutional reforms under tightening fiscal constraints. Using a difference-in-differences design, I show that governments more exposed to the shale revolution experienced significant long-term gains in state capacity relative to less-exposed governments. Evidence on public goods provision further indicates that exposed governments reallocated public resources away from elite patronage and toward the mass public. These findings suggest that enduring downward trends in global oil prices—such as those anticipated under the global clean energy transition—may strengthen, rather than weaken, state capacity, and shift distributional conflicts in favor of the mass public in oil-exporting countries.

Climate Change and the Economic Geography of Political Conflict
Lisa Dellmuth (Stockholm University)

Climate change poses a growing challenge to democracies, as the economic consequences of extreme weather events become increasingly severe. While prior research shows that climate shocks can erode support for incumbent parties, much less is known about how they shape broader patterns of political competition across geographies. We argue that climate disasters trigger electoral realignments away from mainstream parties, and that the direction of this shift depends on the geography of economic exposure. Where voters are left to bear the financial burden of disasters—due to limited insurance or compensation—they are more likely to punish incumbents and shift support toward populist parties that channel discontent through anti-elite and anti-system appeals. Green parties also gain modestly following climate shocks, but these gains are concentrated in wealthier regions and are not amplified by personal exposure to economic losses. We test these claims using novel subnational data on insured disaster losses and electoral outcomes from 313 regions in 26 OECD countries (1990–2020). By foregrounding the geography of vulnerability, our analysis helps reconcile prior conflicting findings and underscores how climate change is reshaping the territorial basis of democratic contestation.

Session 2: 30th October, 4.30pm-5.30pm, OLD 2.21

The Political Economy of Climate Finance: Information, Incentives, and Institutional Delay
Fiona Bare (Princeton University)

Mobilizing capital is critical for addressing climate change, yet international climate finance is slow to reach recipients. Why does funding stall as the crisis accelerates? This paper develops a theory of strategic delay rooted in two challenges common to development finance but especially acute in climate aid: projects yield both public and private goods, and outcomes are highly uncertain. I formalize how these features complicate bargaining and impede disbursement in a game-theoretic model. To evaluate the model, I trace broader patterns in the negotiation-to-implementation process for twenty-seven major multilateral climate funds (2003 – 2024) and analyze novel data on project timelines at the Green Climate Fund. Financing patterns reflect observable implications of the theory: disbursement is slower under conditions of uncertainty, preference misalignment, and limited compromise in project design. Elite interviews further illuminate the institutional and political frictions involved. The findings contribute to debates on international cooperation and institutional design, while offering practical insights for improving the speed and equity of global development financing mechanisms.

Fairness or Familiarity? How Redistribution and Existing Policies Shape Public Acceptance of Carbon Taxation
Oliver Prinzing (University of Lucerne)

As carbon taxation faces political opposition, redistributing tax revenue back to the public is a commonly proposed strategy to increase public acceptance. Yet, recent research indicates that redistributions increase acceptance only to a limited extent. Building on policy feedback theory, this paper examines whether redistributions can increase acceptance more robustly, when they invoke interpretive evaluations, such as societal fairness, rather than focus on individual cost-benefit outcomes. Furthermore, we examine whether this impact differs when alternative tax designs are compared to an existing carbon tax. We conducted a discrete choice experiment with a representative sample of 728 Swiss citizens, who were treated randomly with a redistribution focus, a reference to the existing carbon tax, or a combination thereof. Results indicate that redistributions did not affect public acceptance of alternative carbon tax designs, and negatively affected the probability of support. Moreover, policy feedback from the existing carbon tax robustly decreased acceptability of new carbon tax designs. Yet, referencing the existing carbon tax increased the willingness to accept higher tax levies for left-leaning and environmentally conscious citizens. We make the case that existing policies influence perceptions of climate policy instruments more through interpretive than through self-interest feedback mechanisms. Communication strategies around new carbon tax designs need to be thus firmly adjusted to existing policies, while not focusing on redistributions as a way to invoke interpretive mechanisms.

Session 3: 20th November, 4.30pm-5.30pm, OLD 2.21

Technocratic or Political? The Effect of Partisanship on Drought Responses in France
Rens Chazottes with Nina Lopez-Uroz (EPFL)

The increasing frequency of natural disasters due to climate change has intensified pressures on societal well-being. In such times, understanding the institutional features that enable efficient, objective, and neutral disaster recovery is crucial. Recent studies have highlighted the severity of government oversight in disaster relief, often favoring co-partisan groups in developing and clientelistic countries. Disaster recovery systems are particularly vulnerable to the politics of post-disaster fund allocation. However, scholars have suggested that institutional design can counteract these dynamics, with France's mandatory disaster insurance system frequently cited as a model. In this study, we assess the extent to which France's mandatory disaster insurance system has been manipulated for electoral gain during presidential and municipal elections. Utilizing data from the CatNat national repository and municipal elections from 1980 to 2024, we employ a regression discontinuity design to examine how partisanship alignment between local and national governments affects both the demand and the supply side of disaster recognition and the response time. Our preliminary findings indicate that partisan alignment correlates with a higher demand for disaster recognition. However, the French institutional system appears effective in mitigating political distortions, as we find no significant evidence of partisanship influencing disaster relief. This article sheds light on the effectiveness of institutional design in reducing political distortions during the disaster recovery phase.

Climate Change and Electoral Behaviour: Evidence from Extreme Weather Events in Costa Rica
Alvaro Zuniga-Cordero (University of Namur & World Inequality Lab)

This paper examines the political implications of climate change by analysing how extreme weather events affect electoral outcomes in Costa Rica. Leveraging rich administrative data—including electoral results, individual-level turnout records, employer-employee information, disaster inventories, and geo-localised weather registries—the study integrates high-resolution environmental and electoral data to examine one central question: How do extreme weather events affect voting behaviour? The analysis compares regions exposed to climate shocks over time using a difference-in-differences framework with staggered treatment and event-study designs. Preliminary findings suggest that direct experiences with climate change shape voter attitudes and participation, with responses varying by socioeconomic status and political predispositions. We observe that in progressive-voting areas, extreme weather increases support for environmental policies, while in conservative regions, such events boost backing for populist alternatives. To explain this divergence, the study examines evangelical churches' timing and spatial distribution, revealing that extreme weather strengthens existing evangelical networks, mobilising electoral support for evangelical populist candidates.

Session 4: 4th December, 4.30pm-5.30pm, OLD 2.21

Performing Decarbonization
Anthony Calacino (University of Oxford)

Fossil fuel firms as climate-forcing asset holders face an existential contradiction: their profitability mostly relies on continued hydrocarbon production, yet, increasingly, they are under pressures to decarbonize and go green. Existing accounts often portray corporate greenwashing as reputation management aimed at consumers and investors. This paper argues that climate-forcing firms also deploy environmental messaging as a political strategy to shape the media and policy arenas. Using an original dataset of nearly 5,000 YouTube videos released by fourteen of the world's largest oil companies between 2008 and 2025, we apply text-as-data methods to examine when and why oil firms emphasize environmental messaging. We explore such messaging at key political junctures. The first juncture is when national climate mitigation legislation is under debate, consistent with the view that firms seek to preempt more ambitious mitigation policies. Second, messaging changes when ambitious climate candidates are competitive in national elections. The third juncture is in the lead-up to UNFCCC climate summits, which reflects the growing influence of climate-forcing asset holders at these global meetings. Moreover, we find different rates of environmental messaging between Global North and South firms, as well as between private, traded and state-owned. These findings reposition greenwashing as a form of political influence rather than only consumer persuasion, contributing to theories of corporate power, disinformation, and the political economy of climate change.

When do Congressmembers Break the Party Line on Climate Policy? The Significant Impact of Employment in High-Emitting Industries
Peter Wyckoff (LSE)

Climate policy is a highly polarized issue in the United States, yet Congressmembers repeatedly deviate from their party's position on votes on climate bills. Between 2009 and 2022, 234 House members and 65 Senators voted at least twice against their party's position on climate legislation. This paper argues that small but distinctly uneven variation in employment shares exposed to climate policy across districts can help explain these deviations. Using industry emission intensity rates and granular employment data, this paper finds that a 4-percentage point difference in exposed employment share roughly doubles the likelihood a Democrat will deviate from their party line, and halves the likelihood for a Republican. The paper presents two potential mechanisms for the outsized impact of these small employment shares: employment multipliers, and local industrial undiversification.