Green Backlash and Its Consequences for Democracy and Policy

In this memo, Austin Beacham, a postdoctoral fellow at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology, responds to the two questions posed by the organizers of IGCC’s Research Workshop on Climate Change and Democracy: under which conditions can climate change and climate policies trigger a green backlash? And what are the consequences of climate change disruptions and green backlash for democracy? In brief, Beacham identifies climate change as an existentially distributive conflict that creates new winners and losers, perhaps on a scale unprecedented in human history, and asserts that we are only beginning to see the consequences of this conflict economically, politically, and socially. Further, Beacham argues that there is still a lot we do not know about current dynamics and especially how these dynamics will shift as climate change intensifies.

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On January 30–31, 2025, IGCC convened a first-of-its-kind research incubator to examine the links between climate change, democratic backsliding, and public backlash against green policies. The conversation aimed to bridge the divide between scholars within the political and climate sciences to promote interdisciplinary studies at the crossroads between global environmental and governance challenges. Workshop participants prepared memos before the meeting responding to two questions: under which conditions can climate change and climate policies trigger a green backlash? And what are the consequences of climate change disruptions and green backlash for democracy? These memos are now published as part of an ongoing IGCC essay series on Climate Change, Green Backlash, and Democracy.