The systemic and governmental agendas in presidential attention to climate change in Mexico 1994\u20132018

Arturo Balderas Torres,Priscila Lazaro Vargas,Jouni Paavola

doi:10.1038/s41467-019-14048-7

Abstract

Ambitious climate action requires sustained long-term attention from political leaders. To understand how climate change entered the political agenda in a developing country, we examine from an agenda-setting perspective the attention paid by Mexican presidents to this issue from 1994 to 2018. We perform a longitudinal analysis of 968 documents referring to climate change published by four presidencies to describe changes in attention levels over time and to determine how changes in international agreements and public policies (i.e. systemic agenda) and National Development Plans (NDPs)(i.e. governmental agenda) influence them. Our results indicate international agreements and national legislation establish a baseline for inclusion of climate change into governmental actions. Agenda changes driven by international agreements result in reactive changes in attention, while ambitious approaches are aligned with proactive NDPs. Our results also indicate public awareness and electoral periods can open windows of opportunity for reframing agendas and promoting ambitious climate action.

Highlights

Ambitious climate action requires sustained long-term attention from political leaders
Our findings indicate that changes in the governmental and international systemic agendas resulted in discernible changes in attention levels paid by Mexican presidents to climate change
We find that international agreements and domestic legislation provide a bottom line for addressing climate change, but that ambitious climate action is based on ambitious executive governmental plans

Summary

Introduction

Ambitious climate action requires sustained long-term attention from political leaders. To understand how climate change entered the political agenda in a developing country, we examine from an agenda-setting perspective the attention paid by Mexican presidents to this issue from 1994 to 2018. Agenda changes driven by international agreements result in reactive changes in attention, while ambitious approaches are aligned with proactive NDPs. Our results indicate public awareness and electoral periods can open windows of opportunity for reframing agendas and promoting ambitious climate action. Policies and attention cycles can have long stable periods alongside short and intense periods of agenda and policy change, which can have long-lasting effects (i.e. punctutated equilibrium[10]) In his classic work Kingdon[2,13] proposed that three conditions need to be met for an issue to enter an agenda: a problem is recognized, solutions are available and political conditions are favorable. Drivers of climate policy include international negotiations[20]; potential access to international finance[21]; reputation[22]; interest in international decision making[20]; concerns about energy security and other local problems or co-benefits[15,23]; the sense of responsibility[24]; and interest to divert external pressure for more ambitious action[25]

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