Global climate politics after the return of president Trump

Journal article

Abstract:: The second Trump administration has disrupted global climate politics, turning the US away from the clean energy and environmental policies of the Biden administration. Consequently, analytical attention is turning, inside and outside of the United States, to a family of concepts referred to as “Climate Realism” (CR), which favors long-run investments in technology and adaptation over near-term climate mitigation efforts. We critically engage with CR and argue that political science identifies four key features of climate politics that shed light on CR’s strengths and weaknesses, and which will persist even in the second Trump era. Despite CR’s flaws, we contend that its emergence in reaction to the second Trump administration highlights some important dimensions of climate politics that deserve greater attention going forward. We highlight three topics for research: the political and practical strategies of the anti-green coalition; the heterogeneity in viable national economic strategies; and the implications for IR of a turn away from meaningful climate mitigation in powerful nations.

Notes:: This article has been accepted for publication in International Organization.

Licence:: Terms and Conditions of Use for Oxford University Research Archive

If you are the owner of this record, you can report an update to it here: Report update to this record