Climate Politics in the United States
Abstract: We study the effects of climate change and mitigation on U.S. politics. We combine 2000-2020 precinct-level voting information and congressional candidate positions on environmental policy with high-resolution temperature and precipitation data and census-block level measures of “green” and “brown” employment shares. Holding politician positions fixed within a district, we find that Democratic vote share increases with exogenous changes in local climate and green transition employment. We incorporate these estimates into a structural model of political competition, including both direct and demand-driven effects of shocks on candidate policy platform supply. Incorporating our model estimates into 2025-2050 projections of climate change and green employment transition, we find that voting for the Democrats increases, even as both parties move slightly to the right on climate policy. Under worst-case climate projections and current mitigation trajectories, the median 2050 Congressperson has roughly the same environmental ideology as the median 2010 Democrat –for instance supporting carbon pricing.
Francesco Trebbi is a Professor of Business and Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.
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