Proportional representation and climate action
The voting system can play a significant role in helping or hindering lasting and effective climate change policy. Check out our short video about climate change and Canada’s voting system above, and read much more detailed information below.
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Two families of voting systems
There are two main “families” of voting systems in the world: proportional representation and “winner-take-all” (plurality/majoritarian).
These have very different consequences for how people are represented and how politics is done, leading to different policy outcomes.
Proportional representation (PR) is the principle that the seats a party gets should fairly closely match its popular support among voters. About 80% of OECD countries use proportional systems.
What voting systems protect climate policy from far right populism?
Many commentators have expressed concern about the rise of far right populism around the world and its potential effect on government policy-making, including on climate.
Politicians with a vested interest in maintaining our winner-take-all voting system have even used the prospect of more power for the far right to frighten voters about proportional representation.
Yet the research is clear: countries with winner-take-all systems are at a much higher risk of seeing their climate plans torn up, while countries with PR are more stable.
As Bob Watson previous chairman of the IPCC stated:
“Governments need to understand what are the right policies to stimulate the private sector to change. The private sector doesn’t care what the policies are as long as they are consistent and they offer a level playing field. Policies keep changing, in countries like the US, Canada and Australia, they go up and down like a yoyo.”
A 2022 study by Ben Lockwood, Professor of Economics at the University of Warwick, and Matt Lockwood, Senior Lecturer in Energy Policy in the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex Business School, looked at the impact of the far right on climate policy in 31 OECD countries from 2007 to 2018.
Their research found that countries with proportional representation (PR) voting systems are better protected against the threat of having climate policy reversed by right wing populists than countries outside the EU with winner-take-all systems such as Canada, the USA and Australia.
Lockwood & Lockwood found that proportional representation seems to act as a bulwark against climate policy lurch: in countries with PR, far-right parties had no significant effect on climate policy.
This stands in contrast with research findings in winner-take-all systems, where the far right was much more successful in blocking or reversing climate action.
As Lockwood noted, in countries with winner-take-all systems the far right can “capture an existing centre-right party”, forming a mainstream populist government with a profoundly negative effect on climate policy. It’s worth recalling that in Canada, a single-party “majority government” can be formed with about one third of the popular vote.
Winner-take-all voting systems cause policy lurch
Tackling the climate crisis requires serious and sustained effort. Ongoing cooperation between political parties and the ability to plan and deliver long-term solutions across multiple political terms are key to success.
Researchers have long identified “policy lurch” as a side effect of winner-take-all voting systems. This refers to a pattern of drastic shifts in policy, usually where a new government reverses the policies of the previous government.
For example, in 2019 Jason Kenney vowed to spend his first 100 days in government undoing many of the policies brought in by Rachel Notley. Naheed Nenshi is promising to undo the policies of Kenney’s successor, Danielle Smith.
Policy lurch is also on full display in Ontario. It is felt most acutely on the issue of climate policy, with the abrupt cancellation of the cap and trade system and 758 renewable energy projects in 2018.
Cyclic reversals of legislation, dismantling regulations and canceling programs related to any policy area is always economically wasteful.
Finnigan (2022) in his research on the impact of institutions (including electoral systems) on climate policy, notes:
“Archetypal competitive political economies include the majoritarian liberal market economies of Australia, Canada, the UK, and the US.
Majoritarian electoral rules mean that two, typically patronage rather than programmatic, political parties are locked in fierce electoral competition over marginal votes, while exclusive legislative committees enable the governing party to dominate policymaking (Powell 2000).
To influence policy, the only hope for the opposition party is to win the next election.
In an effort to do so, it will face strong incentives to turn climate into a partisan issue and compete with the governing party on it. Under such conditions, the two main parties will have few incentives to cultivate and sustain cross-party consensus on long-term climate policy, leading to conflict and gridlock.
For this reason, we should not expect these countries to be early policy adopters. Given the power of the governing party, partisanship should be the key driver of climate policy investment. Investment should wax and wane dramatically depending on which of the two parties is in power…
Ignoring cost-bearing organized groups should enable governments in these countries to adopt more radical policy change. However, the strategy will also antagonize industry, who, by being shut out of private negotiations, will tend to respond by expanding the scope of distributive conflict to the public square…
Rather than engage in deliberative bargaining, having few veto points incentivizes an anti-climate opposition party and its allied interest groups to oppose, delay, and block climate policy investment until their side comes to power, at which point they can reverse course.
For this reason, competitive political economies are likely to be characterized by frequent policy reversals and a general lack of self-reinforcing policies.”
Proportional voting systems: stability and continuity
Most countries with proportional representation are governed by majority coalitions, or similar arrangements where multiple parties work together to create and execute plans to tackle climate change.
Since parties cooperate to create policy, legislation generally has the support of a real majority of voters.
A culture of collaboration between parties, along with some degree of continuity in the parties forming government, can have a profound and lasting impact on climate policy.
A recent article about Norway’s decision to make all vehicles emissions-free by 2025 (emphasis ours) noted:
“Because Norway’s proportional, multi-party system often produces coalition and minority governments, emissions haven’t become politicized, as they have in other countries… The target of making all new cars zero emissions by 2025 was supported by all parties.”
Policies built through meaningful collaboration are much more likely to last through changes of government.
Denmark is a good example of the kind of political culture that is possible with proportional representation. In 2020, almost every party, including conservative parties, worked together to pass one of the strongest climate laws in the world. As Dan Jørgensen, Denmark’s climate and energy minister at the time stated:
“Even if we run into a financial crisis again, even if political parties change and climate won’t be as high on the agenda as it is right now, the law we’ve made now makes sure that the progress on fighting climate change will not stop… If the markets are to react they need to be sure it’s not just a good idea that’s in fashion right now. They need to be sure it will last.”
Thinking of investing? Check the voting system
When it comes to building the economy of the future, stability is what businesses and investors need.
As Finnegan (2022) notes in his research on electoral systems and climate policy in the UK under first-past-the-post:
“Constant changes to renewable energy and carbon pricing policy, caused by party disagreements, are blamed for generating policy uncertainty amongst investors (Ares and Delebarre 2016, 18; Lockwood 2013, 1346; Wood and Dow 2011, 2239).”
Irfan Nooruddin’s 2011 study of economic volatility and electoral systems found that coalition governments produced less economic volatility due to more stable economic policy. He notes:
“When a single party controls all the levers of the legislative process, it is better able to enact policies closer to its ideal point. The resulting policy might in fact be the preferred outcome for economic agents too… but the government can not guarantee that future governments will not reverse course should the opposition win. In this case, even if economic agents respond by investing in the country, they will remain wary of future policy change, and forgo more irreversible investments.”
Nooruddin also found that businesses judged countries run by coalition governments to be more stable:
“In a World Bank survey of firms across the world, I find that firms located in countries governed by parliamentary coalitions are less likely to perceive policy uncertainty to be a major obstacle to their businesses, and more likely to consider opening a new establishment in the near future.”
As former Conservative Senator Hugh Segal (October 13, 1950 – August 9, 2023) stated:
“Economic policy only works when it reflects economic and social reality. In a democracy that reality is made real by parliaments that are representative of how people actually voted. First past the post alters, dilutes, frustrates and often negates how people actually voted. Economic policy based even in part on this distortion cannot but be distorted itself.”
The evidence is clear: the policy lurch typical of winner-take-all voting systems creates instability. Companies hoping to invest in a clean energy future in a country with a winner take-all voting system are left wishing they had a crystal ball.
Research on voting systems, environmental policy and outcomes
Peer-reviewed research over decades shows that countries with proportional systems act sooner, do more, and deliver better outcomes on the environment.
- Frederiksson (2004) found that countries with proportional systems set stricter environmental policies.
- Cohen (2010) found that countries with proportional systems were faster to ratify the Kyoto protocol, and that their share of world total carbon emissions had declined.
- In Lijphart’s second edition (2012) of his groundbreaking work on electoral systems and democracy in 36 countries over 55 years, he found that countries with proportional systems scored six points higher on the Yale Environmental Performance Index, which measures ten policy areas, including environmental health, air quality, resource management, biodiversity and habitat, forestry, fisheries, agriculture and climate change.
- Baird, Bodily and Meriam (2007) found that the scores on the Environmental Performance Index increased as the degree of proportionality in the voting system increased.
- Using data from the International Energy Agency, Orellana (2014), in his book “Electoral Systems and Governance: How Diversity Can Improve Policy Making”, found that between 1990 and 2007, when carbon emissions were rising everywhere, the statistically-predicted increase in emissions was significantly lower in countries with fully proportional systems: only 9.5%, compared to 45.5% for countries using winner-take-all systems. He found the use of renewable energy to be approximately 117 percent higher in countries with fully proportional electoral systems.
- Finnegan, J. J. (2022) noted that “consensus democracies are more likely to implement and sustain climate policy. Climate policy is a type of long-term policy investment and institutions in consensus democracies are more likely to provide governments the necessary conditions for making such investments.” Finnegan found that “countries with more proportional rules have higher levels of overall climate policy investment.” (see tables below)
What about a winner-take-all ranked ballot?
Recently, some politicians have been promoting a winner-take-all ranked ballot system as a way to produce more cooperative politics.
Although fair and proportional systems (like Single Transferable Vote) can use a ranked ballot, when the politicians or media refer to a “ranked ballot” system, they always mean the winner-take-all ranked ballot system properly called Alternative Vote (AV).
Only two countries use Alternative Vote at the national level: Australia and Papua New Guinea. Australia, with a similar history to Canada, provides a good illustration of the kind of politics that develop under Alternative Vote, and the consequences for climate policy.
Australia adopted Alternative Vote 100 years ago—a self-interested political maneuver by the conservative parties to stop “vote splitting” that was allowing Labor candidates to win.
The use of winner-take-all ranked ballots has not produced a more cooperative system. Instead, for the most part, it has entrenched a hostile and divisive two-party system. Click here to see some real political ads from Australia to see the similarity to first-past-the-post politics.
Research by John and Hargreaves (2011) concluded:
“Alternative Vote is unique amongst ordinal voting systems in that it supports and perhaps encourages hostility between the largest parties thus contributing to Australia‘s harsh political culture.”
“Blood sports” is how Professor Mark Evans of the University of Canberra Institute for Governance and Public Analysis describes Australia’s politics, where the public’s trust in political institutions hit an all-time low in 2019.
If the trend continues, Democracy 2025 researchers concluded that by 2025, fewer than 10% of Australians will trust their politicians and political institutions. They mince no words about the consequences:
“Trust is the glue that facilitates collective action for mutual benefit. Without trust we don’t have the ability to address complex, long-term challenges.
Policy lurch has had devastating effect on climate policy in Australia
Internationally, the one of the most severe national examples of policy lurch on climate was Australia’s cancellation of their national carbon tax in 2014. Australia is the only OECD country to repeal a national carbon tax—so far.
It’s no coincidence that Australia uses a winner-take-all ranked ballot voting system that replicates (and can even exaggerate) the problems of first-past-the-post, including policy lurch.
Policy lurch was on full display in Australia in 2014 over the issue of a carbon tax. Negotiations for a bipartisan deal to put a price on carbon were scuttled because a faction of MPs (including some hostile to climate action) in the conservative (“Liberal-National”) party were more interested in a wedge issue on which to wage an election battle against the governing Labor Party.
In the end, the carbon tax that had been brought in by the Labor government alone—resulting in the biggest annual reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in 24 years—was quickly reversed by the Liberal-National (conservative) government.
The consequences for Australia’s emissions were rapid and drastic, with long-lasting political implications.
Six years after the repeal of the carbon tax, Australia scored a zero on the 2020 Climate Performance Index’s policy scale—dead last.
Even worse, the ability to have a rational political conversation around carbon taxation sustained serious, long-term damage.
As Kane Thorton, CEO of Australia’s Clean Energy Council commented in 2019:
“Even now, in discussion and debate you can still see those scars. Every political leader—across both major parties—has been very substantially impacted by this issue… What that means is that what is otherwise a very sensible and accepted approach — putting a price on carbon — is now so difficult that governments either aren’t prepared to go there or it’s done in such a way that there’s such a narrow field of politically palatable options that it’s almost pointless.”
The climate crisis needs a democratic system up for the challenge
If all government policy were evidence-based, Canada would have taken strong action to reduce CO2 emissions decades ago. We would also have implemented a proportional voting system. Decades of published research show that the two are connected.
With scientists telling us that climate action in the next decade will decide our fate and new evidence strengthening the link between proportional representation and superior environmental performance (especially in the presence of right wing populists), let’s hope that our elected leaders abandon their self-interested refusal to consider electoral reform.
Canadians, and indeed citizens around the globe, are counting on our government to do the right thing. Striking a Citizens’ Assembly to look at climate action and another to make recommendations on electoral reform would go a long way to getting us onto the right path, quickly.
There’s no time to waste.