There is climate politics, and there is national climate politics. What we are watching now is the international brand conducted at 20,000 feet — the global confabs of politicians, scientists and environmentalists ahead of the UN COP26 climate change conference to be held in Glasgow. Few pay much attention to what happens at ground level — the gritty local politics that will ultimately decide how much actually gets done to limit global warming.
An optimist would contend that the effort to decarbonise the world will turn out to be the moment when force of dire circumstance obliges humankind to rediscover enlightened self-interest. The US and China will segment their great power rivalry in the cause of saving the planet, the wealthy will subsidise poor nations in the drive to net zero and all will grow richer from the technological leaps that will accompany the “greening” of economies.
We can hope. An alternative path, however, ends in a fresh explosion of political populism as the burden of implementing all those ringing international commitments falls on those least able to afford them — on the anti-globalist left-behinds who backed Donald Trump for the White House, cheered Britain’s flight from the EU and might yet put the hard-right populist Marine Le Pen in France’s Elysée Palace.