<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Young people care a lot about climate change\u2014
but most ofthem can\u2019t vote. Here\u2019s how
governments can adaptto accommodate them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
BY DAVID RUNCIMAN
JULY 20, 2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In today\u2019s Britain, a rare public figure can bring together
Brexiteers and Remainers, Conservatives and Labour. Yet the teenage
climate activist Greta Thunberg did just that on a visit to London in April,
when she was feted by British politicians from across the political
spectrum.
In an address to Parliament, Thunberg said she spoke for the children who
had been betrayed by politicians and voters who had failed to prevent
climate change. She also claimed to speak for the unborn billions of
people who will bear the brunt of a rapidly warming world. \u201cI am 16 years
old,\u201d she said. \u201cI come from Sweden. And I speak on behalf of future
generations. \u2026 Now we probably don\u2019t even have a future anymore.\u201d
It would have taken a very brave politician to downplay the stark moral
power of this message. None of her British interlocutors\u2014from Labour
leader Jeremy Corbyn to would-be Tory leader Michael Gove to the
speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow\u2014dared. Instead, they all
accepted the charges laid against them and promised to do better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
T H E C L I M A T E C R I S I S I S A N I S S U E T H A T R E Q U I R E S
L O N G – T E R M T H I N K I N G A C R O S S T H E G E N E R A T I O N S ,
Y E T E L E C T O R A L P O L I T I C S I S G E A R E D T O W A R D
R E S P O N D I N G T O I M M E D I A T E G R I E V A N C E S .<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thunberg\u2019s remarks showcased the profound gulf between younger and
older generations when it comes to climate politics: the clash between
those with the power to act and those who must live with the
consequences if they don\u2019t. The climate crisis is an issue that requires
long-term thinking across the generations, yet electoral politics is geared
toward responding to immediate grievances. Politicians can talk about
taking the long view, but without institutional changes to the way we
practice democracy, they are unlikely to look beyond short-term political
gains.
The young and the old increasingly look like two distinct political tribes,
and the differences are perhaps starkest over climate change. Recent
polling in Britain indicates that for nearly half of all voters aged 18 to 24,
global warming represents the most pressing issue of our time. Less than
20 percent of voters over 65 think the same. In the United States, only 10
percent of eligible voters aged 18 to 29 describe climate change as a \u201cnot
very serious problem,\u201d compared with 40 percent of those over 65 who call
it that.
Observing the generational divide on climate change is easier than
accounting for it. Thunberg\u2019s rhetoric implies the distinction is a matter of
morality: The older generations simply don\u2019t care about the interests of
the younger ones. Yet it is far from clear that older voters are less worried
about climate change primarily because they won\u2019t be around to see the
worst of it. Older voters care about many things that don\u2019t directly
concern them. For instance, in the U.K., education ranks almost as highly
for those over 65 as it does for those under 30.
Nevertheless, climate change has become a contest of worldviews split
along generational lines\u2014and it\u2019s a contest that older voters are winning.
That should be no surprise. After all, they are both more numerous and
more likely to vote than their younger counterparts. When Thunberg<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
T A C K L I N G C L I M A T E C H A N G E I S G O I N G T O R E Q U I R E
S I G N I F I C A N T B E H A V I O R A L C H A N G E : I N W H A T W E
E A T , W H E R E W E L I V E , A N D H O W W E T R A V E L .
speaks for the generations yet to come, she has the numbers on her side\u2014
the unborn limitlessly outnumber the currently living. But when it comes
to actual voters, the math favors the climate skeptics or at least the people
who have other priorities. Our world hasn\u2019t just warmed rapidly in recent
decades\u2014it has also aged even faster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If democratic politicians are to make good on their promises to Thunberg
and her peers, one of the largest barriers in their way are their own
electorates. And citizens may become more antagonistic as governments
push forward on new policies. Tackling climate change is going to require
significant behavioral change: in what we eat, where we live, and how we
travel. Current patterns of food and energy consumption are
unsustainable. If we and the planet are to survive, that will mean less
meat, smaller homes, and fewer cars.
The old, however, tend to find changing their behavior to be more difficult
than the young do. Again, this is not because they don\u2019t care about the
future of the planet nor simply because they won\u2019t have to live with the
consequences of failing to change. It is because age brings experience, and
experience brings an aversion to loss. The older we are, the more likely we
are to have things we don\u2019t want to give up. People who have never driven
a car will find it far easier to do without than people who have used one for
their entire lives.
One solution to this generational imbalance might be to simply wait it out,
since younger generations will replace older ones before too long. If
generational divisions are primarily attitudinal rather than material, there
is reason to think that young people will persist in their concern about
climate change as they age. Eventually the college-educated young of the
present will become the college-educated old of the future. The climate<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
P E O P L E W H O H A V E N E V E R D R I V E N A C A R W I L L
F I N D I T F A R E A S I E R T O D O W I T H O U T T H A N P E O P L E
crisis will rise up the political agenda as climate-conscious generations
ascend the age ladder.
The problem is that the climate can\u2019t wait that long. Today\u2019s enlightened
young will not age quickly enough; decisive action needs to be taken
before 2030, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change now
insists.
One way to make that happen would be to redress the imbalance directly
by lowering the voting age. Watching the 16-year-old Thunberg put
Britain\u2019s political leaders in their place, it was hard to think of a good
reason why she should not be allowed to vote. But still, the politically<\/p>\n\n\n\n
plausible proposals\u2014such as extending the franchise to 16- and 17-year-
olds\u2014would not be enough to make a decisive difference. The changes<\/p>\n\n\n\n
that could actually tip the numerical balance\u2014such as extending the vote
to all school-age children\u2014are too contentious to be practicable. Giving
children the vote is unlikely to lessen generational divisions over climate
change. It could make those divisions worse\u2014and thus set back progress
on climate policy\u2014if it looks like an obvious ploy to diminish the voting
power of their grandparents. Maintaining the current voting age but
phasing out votes for the very elderly is likely to be just as divisive.
Appearing to gerrymander the entire electoral system, even with the best
of intentions, will do little to bring the tribes together.
Bridging the generational divide is likely to require other kinds of
institutional change. The evidence of the last 30-plus years of climate
politics suggests that electoral democracy is not well suited to reaching a
consensus on what is to be done. The inevitable partisanship of this form
of politics reinforces wider social divisions. Different perspectives on the
long-term future get turned into polarized positions on climate change,
making it harder to reach a shared perspective on carbon emissions and
renewable energy. Party politics drowns out the pursuit of common
ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
W H O H A V E U S E D O N E F O R T H E I R E N T I R E L I V E S .<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If electoral democracy is inadequate to the task of addressing climate
change, and the task is the most urgent one humanity faces, then other
kinds of politics are urgently needed. The most radical alternative of all
would be to consider moving beyond democracy altogether. The
authoritarian Chinese system has some advantages when it comes to
addressing climate change: One-party rule means freedom from electoral
cycles and less need for public consultation. Technocratic solutions that
put power in the hands of unelected experts could take key decisions out
of the hands of voters.
But there are two reasons to doubt that this is what the climate emergency
needs. First, any transition from a democratic to a post-democratic system
would be massively disruptive. The barriers in the way of action on
climate are also barriers to other forms of radical political change. There
would be resistance, including from older generations. Second, it would
not satisfy Thunberg\u2019s generation either. She was not asking for less
democracy. She was asking for a democracy in which she could be heard.
What\u2019s needed instead are democratic reforms capable of moving past the
generational impasse in electoral politics. One alternative is more
deliberative democracy, which would allow individuals with different
points of view to engage with each other directly, free from partisan
representation. They might not end up agreeing, but at least they would
be speaking for themselves and encountering new opportunities to reach
consensus. In citizens\u2019 assemblies, school-age children and their
grandparents\u2019 generation could jointly participate in political discussion
and decision-making\u2014so long as policymakers agree to bind their own
decisions to the outcomes of these deliberations.
Another alternative would be more radical direct democracy. Politicians
who are unmoved by electoral threats, and citizens otherwise committed
to status quo policy, can sometimes be jolted into action by street protests,
especially if they are sustained over long periods of time. Thunberg\u2019s
London trip coincided with widespread protests by the group Extinction
Rebellion, which has adopted tactics inspired by Martin Luther King Jr.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
and the U.S. civil rights movement. Acts of civil disobedience brought
parts of London to a halt to raise awareness of the moral urgency of the
issue. Some of those taking part were very young\u2014Extinction Rebellion
has a youth wing. But others were not, including Phil Kingston, who was
arrested after climbing onto the roof of a train at 83 years old.
Channeling more energy into these other forms of democracy\u2014into
citizens\u2019 assemblies and civil disobedience, rather than elections and
party-building\u2014will change our politics drastically. But it may be the only
way to ensure our planet does not change beyond recognition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
David Runciman is a politics professor at Cambridge University and the author of How
Democracy Ends. This story appears in the Summer 2019 print issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Young people care a lot about climate change\u2014but most ofthem can\u2019t vote. Here\u2019s howgovernments can adaptto accommodate them. BY DAVID RUNCIMANJULY 20, 2019 In today\u2019s Britain, a rare public figure can bring togetherBrexiteers and Remainers, Conservatives and Labour. Yet the teenageclimate activist Greta Thunberg did just that on a visit to London in April,when she … Continue reading “DEMOCRACYIS THE PLANET\u2019S BIGGEST ENEMY”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":114,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1172","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/world-politics-spring-2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/world-politics-spring-2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/world-politics-spring-2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/world-politics-spring-2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/114"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/world-politics-spring-2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1172"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/world-politics-spring-2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1175,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/world-politics-spring-2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1172\/revisions\/1175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/world-politics-spring-2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}