This yr, elections and excessive climate occasions have collided: In India, the spring normal election was snarled by a warmth wave that killed dozens of individuals, together with ballot employees. In Germany, extreme flooding prompted evacuations simply days earlier than elections for the European Parliament. And within the U.S., individuals attending marketing campaign rallies have fallen ailing from record-breaking warmth.
Political contests set the course for local weather coverage, because the U.S. presidential race between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump certainly will. But it’s unlikely that warmth waves and disasters are altering the minds of sufficient voters who expertise them to change the outcomes.
A rising physique of analysis focuses on whether or not experiencing irregular warmth and different local weather change-linked climate occasions shapes the best way individuals vote, however a transparent consensus hasn’t emerged. If persons are actually casting ballots based mostly on their experiences of disasters, it seems to be a small variety of them.
