Climate in Crisis, Politics in Chaos : A Quantitative Study of How the Instability of Political Regimes Affects Greenhouse Gas Emissions

This research aims to address how political instability affects the emission of greenhouse gases, in particular its effect in different forms of regime types. Three hypotheses are tested: 1) autocracies are larger emitters than democracies, 2) political instability makes autocracies emit even more greenhouse gases, and lastly, 3) personalistic autocracies in particular should emit the most, when politically unstable. Through the method of a regression analysis, data between the years of 1995-2024 is analyzed. The first hypothesis receives support, democracies are shown to emit less than autocracies. Contrary to expectation, political instability demonstrates a highly significant coefficient towards lower emissions. Furthermore, political instability affects autocracies the same as democracies and does not show a significant interaction effect. The second hypothesis therefore receives no support. The third hypothesis receives ambiguous results. Personalism does not significantly interact with political instability, and has at best marginal significant negative effects. The main finding of the research is the emission decreasing effect of political instability. Further studies are required in order to determine actual causality, long-time effects, and to determine why political instability would lower emissions.