The impact of corruption on climate change mitigation: a review article

Abstract

This article reviews the rapidly growing literature on how corruption affects climate change mitigation, focusing on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and the preservation of carbon sinks. Analyzing 200 studies, we argue that corruption hampers mitigation, i.e. increases emissions, and worsens the storage capacity of sinks through deforestation and overfishing. Reducing corruption is vital to successfully combat global warming, because corruption makes climate policies less ambitious in their formulation and less effective when they are implemented due to low rule compliance. The findings of the studies in our sample were established through various types of data, research designs, and methods. We mapped trends in this literature and highlight points of disagreement. Importantly, we suggest that research moves beyond using country-level indicators because of the limitations of such data. We propose several critical avenues for a future research agenda to further understand the linkages between corruption and climate change mitigation.