When The River Runs Dry: Political Barriers to Climate Policy Implementation

Does severe weather lead governments to take action on climate change? Existingresearch argues that climate shocks can spur policy change. We theorize that shockscreate strong short-term incentives for policy adoption, but relatively weak incentivesfor implementation. We test this argument using an event especially likely to inducepolicy change: Drought-induced hydropower shortages, or hydrostress. Leveragingfine-grained global hydrological data, we find that hydrostress increases the adoption ofenergy transition policies. Consistent with our theory however, these policies have, onaverage, little to no durable effect on implementation outcomes. Using cross-nationaldata, survey experiments in Colombia, and more than one hundred elite interviewsacross four countries, we show that accountability deficits and state capture constrainfollow-through. Mass publics reward governments for policy adoption, but not imple-mentation, even as they perceive implementation to reduce climate risk. Our findingsilluminate key political drivers of climate inaction.