The more carbon-intense, the more climate-conscious? Constituencies’ carbon footprints and legislators’ climate-related behaviour in the UK House of Commons 2010 – 2019

Climate change is one of the most pressing problems facing democracies today. The landmark 2015 Paris agreement placed the responsibility on nation states to limit global warming below 2°C, yet we still know little about how national-level processes shape climate policy. In this paper, we study how the carbon footprints of the constituency constrain or enable the climate-related behaviour of legislators in the UK House of Commons. On the one hand, it can be argued that legislators representing constituencies with a high carbon footprint have a responsibility to call for intensified climate action as their constituencies could make meaningful contributions to nation-wide emission cuts. On the other hand, however, since reducing carbon emissions require short-term transformational costs for constituents, and especially to those with carbon-intensive lifestyles, electorally-minded legislators might eschew the responsibility to reduce carbon emissions. In order to shed light onto this research puzzle we conduct a mixed-methods approach by combining large-scale text analyses of parliamentary speeches and written questions in the observation period 2010-19 with qualitative in-depth analyses and interviews in order to understand the rationales for legislators’ behaviour. The results have important implications for our understanding of the political support for climate action and legislators’ constituency representation. Climate change is one of the most pressing problems facing democracies today. The landmark 2015 Paris agreement placed the responsibility on nation states to limit global warming below 2°C, yet we still know little about how national-level political processes shape climate policy. In this paper, we study how the carbon footprint of constituencies constrain or enable the climate-related behaviour of legislators in the UK House of Commons. On the one hand, it can be argued that legislators representing constituencies with a high carbon footprint have a responsibility to call for intensified climate action as their constituencies could make meaningful contributions to nation-wide emission cuts. On the other hand, however, since reducing carbon emissions require short-term transformational costs for constituents, and especially to those with carbon-intensive lifestyles, electorally-minded legislators might eschew the responsibility to reduce carbon emissions. In order to shed light onto this research puzzle we conduct a mixed-methods approach by combining large-scale text analyses of parliamentary speeches and written questions in the observation period 2010-19 with qualitative in-depth analyses and interviews in order to understand the rationales for legislators’ behaviour. The results have important implications for our understanding of the political support for climate action and legislators’ constituency representation.