 As the world prepares to meet at the COP26 climate summit in a few days time, a new report has been released by leading democracy organisation International Idea. The report warns that democracies must act decisively on climate change or risk being overtaken by populism and authoritarian forms of government. Kevin Casas Zamora is the Secretary-General of International Idea. He joins me now live from Stockholm. Welcome to you. Thanks very much for being with us. Tell us more about your findings. Thank you. We're just trying to bring together two strands of discussion that have remained apart, which is the discussion about the future of the planet and the discussion about the future of democracy. And the fact is that democracies need to perform better, not simply because half, over half actually of emissions of CO2 in the world come from democracies, but also because the future of democracy as a political system is at stake. I mean, what use is a political system that is not able to protect humankind from an existential challenge? So what countries in your view are behind in addressing climate change? All countries are. Make no mistake about that. No country is performing the way it should. However, the evidence suggests that democracies for very structural reasons tend to perform not as well as they should, but better than authoritarian systems. When you take the climate change performance index, for instance, nine out of the 10 top performers are democracies. China is at a rather lowly 30th place. So this is not random. There are very structural reasons for that. And one crucial reason is the ability of civil society to organize itself and demand correction of policies in democracies. I mean, that's why someone, I mean, I'm based in Sweden. I mean, it is not entirely coincidental that someone like Greta Thumbre started her movement here in Sweden. When was the last time that you heard of a Chinese Greta Thumbre? Do you feel that the tide is turning now that finally politicians are listening, that people have found their voice like Greta Thunberg? Do you feel that COP26 will be a decisive moment or, as some fair, just another talking shop when very little gets done? I certainly hope so, though a lot of the action that needs to take place needs to take place at the national and the local level. And this is important to bear in mind. I mean, a lot of the interesting things that are happening in terms of forcing governments to up their game when it comes to climate change is happening through litigation. The case of Germany a few months ago, the case of the Netherlands with regards to Shell, the big oil company, it showed that litigation is a particularly a forceful instrument to demand action from governments with regards to climate change. So there's a lot that needs to happen, not simply at the international level, though I certainly hope it will happen, but also at the national and local level. Okay, Kevin Casasimora, thank you very much for joining us from Sweden there.