Climate is now a dirty word in the U.S. government. From quitting the Paris Agreement to dismantling U.S. climate science to attempting to purge climate considerations from policymaking, the Trump administration is not just uninterested in climate-smart policy but hostile to it. That’s bad for U.S. security, as Washington alienates allies, cedes the economy-defining clean technologies of tomorrow, and ignores climate risks to its citizens and military. And it’s bad for global security, with climate change increasing risks of everything from local conflicts to interstate tension.
These tangible setbacks are combining with longstanding critiques of climate policy to produce a sense of grim cynicism among key voices. This response ranges from relief about diminished pressure for climate action to resignation about the new reality. Wall Street banks such as JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley have declared that because the world is unlikely to meet the Paris Agreement’s goal of keeping global temperature rise well under 2° Celsius (C), they will focus on identifying profitable investments for a 3° C world (including more air conditioning). The influential Council on Foreign Relations launched the “Climate Realism Initiative” in April, declaring climate policy a failure. It is calling for a U.S. climate doctrine that would abandon hope for the Paris Agreement and U.S. emissions cuts, and instead, fortify the country to climate impacts. The initiative also proposes economically and militarily coercing developing economies to cut their emissions, and prioritizing climate geoengineering. Meanwhile, others are calling for developing countries to abandon the Paris Agreement in the interest of greater latitude for fossil-fueled development and autonomy from Global North financiers.
These views are understandable, but misguided, and even dangerous. Building resilience to a warmer world should be pursued, but not at the expense of trying to reduce emissions. It is more important than ever to resist climate fatalism. Leading banks and foreign policy thought leaders promoting these views need to realize that they aren’t passive observers. Their reactions can become self-fulfilling prophecies.
Resilience Is Important, But Can’t Be Everything
Yes, the actions of the Trump administration on climate diplomacy and clean energy (to say nothing of alliances, trade, and basic science) are a major setback for securely navigating the climate crisis. Yes, global climate policy is cumbersome, and the world will almost certainly miss the Paris Agreement’s targets. Aside from diplomatic messaging, the likelihood of exceeding the Paris goals has been widely understood for years (just ask the U.S. Intelligence Community, which published this conclusion in 2021). And yes, the energy transition will remain difficult, carrying its own security and geopolitical pitfalls, including economic strains on petrostates, conflict over critical minerals, angst about China’s lead in clean technologies, and the valid energy needs of developing economies. Therefore, planning for a potentially 3°C world, ameliorating the pitfalls of the energy transition, and drastically ramping up resilience investments are critical.
But it would be a mistake to think the world should (or even can) abandon emissions reductions and brace itself for runaway warming. Jim Mattis, a retired four-star general and defense secretary during the first Trump administration, was fond of saying “the enemy gets a vote,” and climate change gets a vote too. Adaptation becomes increasingly difficult, expensive, or impossible as the world moves from 1.5°, to 2°, to 3° C, with worsening consequences for human well-being, stability and security. Whether the Trump administration recognizes it or not, climate change is affecting the political issues it cares about most–whether that’s natural disasters that harm red state voters, climate-driven food price spikes, climate change’s role in migration from Central America, or China’s geopolitical bets. As for economics, investors may think about the profits they could make by betting on air conditioning but they are sure to face bigger problems thanks to climate change. Air conditioners will increasingly be found in properties that cannot be insured or mortgaged due to climate risk. They will rely on power grids that are failing due to climate change-fueled storms. And potential air conditioner consumers will disappear in economies that are losing tens of trillions annually to global warming.
For that reason, greater resilience remains necessary but insufficient to safely navigate climate change. Even though the Paris targets are likely to be missed, emissions cuts are still a security imperative, because every tenth of a degree counts. Five years ago, one could have predicted almost as confidently as today that the Paris Agreement targets were on track for failure. Since then, the world managed to reduce expected warming by about .3°C. This progress is inadequate, but still lifesaving. As little as half a degree of warming is what prevents 1.7 billion extra people from regularly experiencing severe heat waves, the total loss of coral reefs that support food security and livelihoods for hundreds of millions, and the potential crossing of catastrophic climate tipping points. These differences matter even if they are still a “failure” of the Paris Agreement.
The U.S. Government Is Important, But It Isn’t Everything
Reducing emissions and building resilience are both still possible and critical for security and foreign policy. As the world navigates simultaneous geopolitical and ecological crises, worthwhile areas of focus are on the horizon. Focusing on these will be more productive than resigning to runaway warming or twisting climate advocacy in knots in a potentially futile effort to triangulate to Trump.
First, U.S. backsliding on climate and global security will accelerate the growing importance of other countries to the climate fight. In some cases, global progress could even be facilitated by U.S. withdrawal. In April, the International Maritime Organization finalized a first-of-its-kind agreement (without the United States) to introduce fines on fossil fuels in shipping, a hard-to-decarbonize sector responsible for emissions roughly equaling those of Brazil. As Europe navigates the need to provide for more of its own defense, it must climate-proof new military capabilities and balance defense with climate resilience and development obligations. Europe can also reap the triple benefits of renewable energy for resilience, economic competitiveness, and reduced dependence on fossil fuel imports from Russia (and perhaps from an increasingly problematic United States). Japan and South Korea likewise can recognize the value of renewable energy for military readiness, supply chain resilience, and independence from suppliers from Riyadh to Washington. Middle powers such as Brazil, India, Indonesia, Australia, and Canada may take on new or unexpected roles as the world rebalances to a volatile United States and intensifying climate impacts. And amid trade and economic turmoil, multilateral efforts to keep the global agricultural system resilient and alleviate debt burdens will remain critical in coping with climate-driven crises and conflicts in the developing world.
Second, even in the United States, there remains room to bend the trajectory of both resilience and emissions. State and local authorities exceed the size of many countries and are on the front lines of climate mitigation and resilience, including emergency services and National Guards, municipal planners, insurance regulators, utilities, and diplomatic coalitions such as the U.S. Climate Alliance (a bipartisan coalition of states representing 60 percent of the U.S. economy). At the federal level, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has made clear his hostility to doing “climate change crap,” but has already had to clarify that resilience to extreme weather is allowed. Retaining clean energy provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act has received endorsement from key Republican House and Senate voices as budget negotiations loom. And with the United States regrettably about to find out what happens when you enter hurricane and wildfire season with a hamstrung Federal Emergency Management Agency and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, amidst an economic crisis, the politics of climate may evolve further.
Finally, non-governmental organizations inside and outside the United States remain key in ensuring security amid the climate crisis. Media and trusted community organizations are critical to combating the ways climate change is enabling disinformation, as extremists, authoritarian political movements, and nefarious state actors exploit disasters and polarized energy and agricultural debates to propagandize. Civil society and philanthropies will play an important role in filling gaps in research, data, and analysis from the pullback of U.S. government support, as well as preserving intellectual capital and transnational ties for if and when political winds shift. And private companies are likely to continue driving the booming growth in clean energy, which has taken on a profit logic decoupled from U.S. political support, and increasingly see the business case for climate resilience.
Climate policy is taking a hit, but succumbing to this backsliding is not the answer. Instead, there are real security, economic, and political benefits to hitting back.
