The Paris climate agreement calls for big investments in renewable energy. Here’s why governments love it./Washington Post

Not only do governments love big investments in renewables, but we do as well.  That is one of the backbones to breathing life into the green economy, and is the essence of our focus--the business side of green.

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Ice breaks off from the northern wall of the Perito Moreno Glacier on Nov. 29, 2015, in Los Glaciares National Park, part of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field in Argentina. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

This past December, governments of the world met in Paris to negotiate a global climate agreement. It’s considered a breakthrough. Here’s why.

Until now, climate agreements were “top-down,” giving countries targets and timetables for reducing climate-warming carbon emissions. The Paris agreement, by contrast, allows governments to come up with their own emissions reduction plans. Every five years, governments meet to review how well each country has done in meeting its pledges. This “bottom-up” strategy is a remarkable departure from the conventional top-down approach.

But for this bottom-up strategy to work, governments must be willing to invest heavily in climate mitigation. Most research on climate change treats it as a global collective-action problem (as Scott Barrett detailed in 2008). Individual nations must take on the expense and effort of reducing emissions — but the benefits spread throughout the globe. Governments are therefore tempted to take a “free ride” by reaping the benefits of others’ efforts without reducing their own emissions. As a result, everyone suffers from climate change.

So how can a bottom-up strategy based on decentralized action work?

Renewables: The $300 billion question

The most important reason for optimism is that nations around the world have been investing heavily in technologies that offer renewable energy — wind turbines, solar panels, biomass and so on. In 2014, those global investments reached $270 billion. China led the pack, investing $83 billion in wind turbines and solar panels. The United States was the distant second, investing $38 billion, especially in wind energy. Indonesia, Chile, Mexico and Kenya invested more than a billion dollars each.

The investment boom comes in large part because the cost of renewable electricity generation has decreased rapidly. However, companies will keep investing in these technologies only in nations with government policies that support the growth of renewables. Because polluting fossil fuels are still mostly cheaper than renewables, clean energy requires subsidies or similar policies.

Are governments ready for the challenge? Recent political science research shows that renewable energy investments allow governments to both realize their national environmental goals and reap political gains by distributing resources to politically powerful groups.

For governments, renewables are a political winner

Governments of all kinds like renewables because they help the environment and, at the same time, make influential constituencies happy.

In a recent article, we show that democratic governments in particular are likely to adopt ambitious, effective renewable energy policies when their electoral institutions give rural voters a lot of influence through what political scientists call malapportionment.

[Here’s what political science can tell us about the Paris climate deal]

Malapportionment means that some votes are more valuable than others. In rural electoral districts, there are few voters per representative, so the political value of each vote is very high. Malapportionment doesn’t always help the environment; it simultaneously results in lower gasoline taxes and less support for climate agreements. But in this case, it helps.