Political science literature offers two opposing hypotheses to explain voter behavior following natural disasters:

• The environmental effect: an extreme event heightens concern for the environment and strengthens the green vote.
• The response effect: effective crisis management by the government earns voter rewards, regardless of ideology.

A study by Simone Cremaschi and Piero Stanig, from the Department of Social and Political Sciences at Bocconi, tests these two hypotheses using a particularly telling case. And the results, soon to be published in The Journal of Politics, may be surprising: the rescue effect clearly outweighs the environmental one. Storm Vaia benefited the Lega, despite its climate skepticism and opposition to the Paris Agreement.

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