The Politics of Climate Change in the Developing World

Climate change politics in the developing world remains understudied, despite the region's acute vulnerability and centrality to climate futures. This article synthesizes emerging research across three domains: public opinion and climate salience, the political effects of climate exposure, and the institutional production of climate risk. We highlight a central paradox: Widespread public concern often exists alongside low climate literacy, suggesting that political salience stems from lived experience with environmental degradation rather than scientific attribution. Yet the literatures on climate and environmental politics have developed along separate tracks, limiting conceptual integration and obscuring how local environmental decline manifests as climate risk. Turning upstream, we examine how institutions shape climate exposure itself. Climate vulnerability, we argue, is not merely inherited but also politically produced and unequally distributed through the institutions that govern carbon sinks, build adaptive capacity, and allocate political voice. We identify critical gaps around the distributive politics of adaptation, representation, and institutional sources of climate exposure.