Across developing countries, people are acutely aware of a changing climate through failing harvests and drying rivers, even when few connect this to global warming – yet that concern rarely becomes political demand. Why does the link between personal experience and government accountability so often break down?
Climate change is already reshaping daily life for millions of people in developing countries, from drying rivers to unpredictable harvests. Yet, as Guy Grossman explains in this episode of VoxDevTalks, most of what we know about the politics of climate change comes from research on wealthy nations. Grossman, together with co-authors Audrey Sacks and Alice Xu, has written a new review examining how climate change becomes political in the developing world – and why the connection between lived experience and government accountability so often fails to form.
A research gap concentrated in wealthy countries
Grossman argues that the imbalance in climate politics research is stark: most studies focus on topics such as US and European public opinion, EU carbon markets, and international negotiations, while comparatively little is known about how, say, farmers in the Sahel experience and respond politically to a failing harvest. This is despite developing countries facing the most severe consequences of climate change while having contributed the least to causing it.
"We end up in a world in which the richest science of climate politics is concentrated in [a] part of the world that is relatively insulated from climate change, and the thinnest part of our understanding is on parts of the world that we can think about as the frontline of climate change."
Why concern is high but understanding is uneven
One of the review's central findings is a striking paradox: in developing countries, awareness of the human causes of climate change is often low, while concern is remarkably high. Grossman notes that in some surveys, only around four in ten people in Africa attribute climate change to human activity, yet concern exceeds 80% across Africa and Asia, and around 90% in Latin America – matching or surpassing levels in wealthy countries.
"Concern about the climate doesn't necessarily come from understanding the science or even knowing that it's a global human-caused phenomenon. It comes from the lived experiences of local environmental change."
From private hardship to political demand
A recurring theme is the gap between individual adaptation and political action. Farmers facing worsening conditions typically respond privately – switching crops, digging wells, or migrating – rather than holding politicians accountable. Grossman argues this happens because private hardship needs an "interpretive frame" from media, opposition politicians, or local leaders to become a public, political issue.
"If you haven't connected your private misfortune to a public failure, then there's no political ask."
This dynamic can let governments off the hook, and in some cases – such as flood-defence infrastructure that shifts risk onto neighbouring communities – private adaptation can even create new forms of harm.
Rethinking the role of democratic institutions
The conversation challenges a common assumption: that more democratic countries necessarily produce better environmental outcomes. Grossman explains that the correlation between democracy and environmental protection is weak and inconsistent, partly because competitive elections can sometimes incentivise politicians to grant logging permits or overlook environmental damage in exchange for political support.
"What matters is less putting labels on institutions and thinking more about the incentives, and whether they reward protecting a resource or giving it away."
What travels from rich-country research, and what doesn't
Some findings from high-income countries do translate to developing contexts, such as the universal unpopularity of carbon pricing and the presence of distributive conflict between winners and losers of climate policy. However, Grossman argues that the partisan, left-right framing common in US and European climate politics matters far less in developing countries, where questions of state capacity – whether governments can actually enforce policies once passed – are much more central.
Making climate policy politically rewarding
A key insight from the review is the asymmetry between visible disaster relief, for which politicians are readily rewarded, and invisible prevention, for which they rarely receive credit. Grossman suggests that climate policies stand a better chance of political survival when they are designed to deliver tangible, immediate benefits – jobs, cheaper energy, cleaner air – that build their own constituencies of support.
"No one thanks you for the flood that never happened."
Land rights and the case for local power
Discussing marginalised groups such as indigenous communities and informal urban dwellers, Grossman argues that inclusion in decision-making only matters when paired with real authority. He points to secure land rights as a particularly powerful lever, simultaneously protecting forests, enabling investment in self-protection, and giving communities political voice.
"Climate harm isn't just weather happening to people; it's a distribution, and that distribution reflects who has power and who doesn't. Which means that it's chosen, and the good thing is that it could be also chosen differently."
Reference
Grossman, G, A Sacks, and A Z Xu (2026), "The politics of climate change in the developing world," Annual Review of Political Science, 29: 101–126.