{"id":60082811,"date":"2025-05-23T18:04:38","date_gmt":"2025-05-23T17:04:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/?post_type=opinion&#038;p=60082811"},"modified":"2025-06-05T16:22:37","modified_gmt":"2025-06-05T15:22:37","slug":"the-shape-of-a-new-climate-politics-emerges","status":"publish","type":"opinion","link":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/the-shape-of-a-new-climate-politics-emerges\/","title":{"rendered":"The shape of a new climate politics emerges"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Only a few months ago, a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c5ygdv47vlzo\">headline<\/a> like \u201cUnited States sets tariffs of up to 3,521% on solar panels from Southeast Asia\u201d could have been dismissed as satire. Today, it\u2019s nothing special, one of many published amid an uninterrupted fusillade accompanying Donald Trump\u2019s first 100 days in power. Yet it\u2019s also part of something bigger, as axes of economic power shift, technological changes surge, and popular sentiments reconfigure and metastasise. Amid that fracturing world order, how should we consider the climate crisis?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As an unfolding and catastrophic reality, to be sure. Last year was the warmest on record, breaching for the first time the Paris Agreement\u2019s target to limit global temperature rise to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. From wildfires to tropical cyclones, extreme weather events in 2024 displaced the highest number of people since 2008, <a href=\"https:\/\/wmo.int\/news\/media-centre\/wmo-report-documents-spiralling-weather-and-climate-impacts\">according to<\/a> the World Meteorological Organization. Homes, livelihoods and natural systems were destroyed, compounding global shocks and stresses, from armed conflicts to rising food prices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yet from punishing tariffs and the risk of escalation in the US-China trade war, to Trump\u2019s apparent designs on Greenland for its critical minerals&nbsp;\u2013 to paraphrase <a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrovoices.com\/podcast-transcripts\/1385-michael-every-lines-on-maps-vs-lines-on-screens\">Michael Every<\/a>, we can\u2019t only talk about warming as lines on temperature charts. We need to talk about lines on maps. Addressing climate change means addressing it not in the world we would like to live in \u2013 where multilateralism and global governance really matter \u2013 but on this lawless planet of great power rivalry and zero-sum economic statecraft, where sharp economic measures are wielded for national political ends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-cd-pull-quote block--pull-quote block--pull-quote--no-citation\"><div class=\"block--pull-quote__wrapper\"><blockquote class=\"block--pull-quote__quote\">We can\u2019t only talk about warming as lines on temperature charts. We need to talk about lines on maps<\/blockquote><cite class=\"block--pull-quote__cite\"><\/cite><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>In February, the Munich Security Conference, which gathered global heads of state and government, <a href=\"https:\/\/securityconference.org\/assets\/02_Dokumente\/01_Publikationen\/2025\/MSR_2025\/Multipolarization_%E2%80%93_Munich_Security_Report_2025.pdf\">listed<\/a> extreme weather and forest fires, the destruction of natural habitats, and climate change generally as the aggregate \u201cfirst, second, and third greatest\u201d security risks facing countries. Despite this, global coverage of Munich focused not on the geophysical, but the geopolitical: in that case, US vice president JD Vance\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/foreignpolicy.com\/2025\/02\/18\/vance-speech-munich-full-text-read-transcript-europe\/\">speech<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This may have signalled new fissures between Europe and the US, particularly regarding Russia and its war on Ukraine, but it also confirmed a broader pattern: the aggressive <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c5ypw7pn9q3o\">securing of supply chains<\/a>, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=wh4FnJiZUqs\">rejection of multilateralism<\/a>, and the upending of the last vestiges of consensus around <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mckinsey.com\/industries\/social-sector\/our-insights\/a-generational-shift-the-future-of-foreign-aid\">development<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c5yg2y21yq5o\">diplomacy<\/a>. For climate, these realities and how they bear on government decision making are crucial to understand, particularly given the centrality of China\u2019s developmental state and its role in economic globalisation.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-competition\">Competition<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Back to those tariffs. If they were unimaginable, perhaps this is only because important climate conversations \u2013 around the intersection of geopolitics, economics and trade, with US-China relations at the centre of it \u2013 were siloed or downplayed. As trade tensions escalated through the first Trump and then Biden administrations \u2013 lest we forget the <a href=\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/business\/roundtable-implications-of-us-tariffs-on-chinas-green-products\/\">100% tariff on Chinese EVs<\/a> introduced in 2024 \u2013 Dialogue Earth reported on how China <a href=\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/energy\/what-next-for-southeast-asias-china-backed-solar-boom\/\">rerouted<\/a> a significant amount of its low-carbon technology production, much of it for export, through Southeast Asia.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a class=\"wp-block-cd-related-news alignright block--related-news loading\" data-post-id=\"60067395\"><div class=\"block--related-news__image\"><\/div><div class=\"block--related-news__content\"><span class=\"block--related-news__heading\">Recommended<\/span><span class=\"block--related-news__title\"><\/span><\/div><\/a>\n\n\n\n<p>While some of this emerged in reaction to sanctions and tariffs (and Chinese companies reportedly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/147fddbb-7031-4347-9251-4425614e138d\">continue to find ways<\/a> to ship goods via third countries), it was clearly longer term and strategic from a Chinese perspective. Consider the words of Huang Yiping, dean of the Institute of South-South Cooperation and Development at Peking University, who <a href=\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/energy\/what-chinas-green-overcapacity-could-mean-for-the-global-south\/\">suggested<\/a> last year that the Chinese government should implement the equivalent of a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/event\/Marshall-Plan\">Marshall Plan<\/a> for clean technology \u2013 stimulating demand for Chinese manufacturers\u2019 products, absorbing overcapacity, and supporting green transformation and growth in a virtuous cycle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Such an approach is consistent with the Chinese government\u2019s strategic, patient and long-term nurturing of low-carbon innovation \u2013 an approach rooted in national self-interest and one that has led to undisputed Chinese dominance of those sectors. Increasingly, China\u2019s green production is not for export to rich countries: today, half of China\u2019s solar modules, wind power technology and EVs are <a href=\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/energy\/why-chinas-clean-energy-need-not-fear-us-tariffs\/\">exported to the Global South<\/a> rather than developed markets. The country seeing the largest increase in Chinese exports of wind power equipment between 2020-2024 was South Africa; for Chinese EVs in the same period, it was Brazil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Still, Huang\u2019s Marshall Plan would represent an expansion of ambition. It would require considerable financial support, such as lending from large state-owned policy banks that was characteristic of China\u2019s approach to overseas development in the first decade of the Belt and Road Initiative, from 2013-2023, but today has <a href=\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/energy\/power-plays-chinas-changing-energy-financing-in-africa\/\">waned considerably<\/a>. Investments over that period, most of them in large, conventional infrastructure projects, <a href=\"https:\/\/greenfdc.org\/ten-years-of-chinas-belt-and-road-initiative-bri-evolution-and-the-road-ahead\/\">totalled<\/a> more than USD 1 trillion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Today, the outlook is changing. China\u2019s investments in the Global South have become greener, including to comply with largely <a href=\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/business\/understanding-chinas-latest-guidelines-for-greening-the-belt-and-road\/\">voluntary guidelines<\/a> and (<a href=\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/digest\/chinas-overseas-coal-power-projects-persist\/\">mostly<\/a>) with the coal-exit pledge <a href=\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/energy\/chinas-no-new-coal-power-overseas-pledge-one-year-on\/#:~:text=On%2021%20September%202021%2C%20China's,coal%2Dfired%20power%20projects%20overseas.\">announced<\/a> unilaterally in 2021; the average deal size is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.griffith.edu.au\/__data\/assets\/pdf_file\/0017\/2093102\/China-Belt-and-Road-Initiative-BRI-Investment-Report-2024.pdf\">smaller<\/a>, reflecting the country\u2019s own economic downturn; commercial lenders play a more important role, and the focus is becoming more strategic, concentrated on sectors such as renewable energy, transition minerals, and ICTs \u2013 an approach sometimes known as \u201csmall but beautiful\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-cd-article-image aligncenter block--article-image block--article-image--article\" itemscope itemtype=\"http:\/\/schema.org\/ImageObject\"><div class=\"block--article-image__column\"><div class=\"hide-expand block--article-image__image\"><img class=\"lazy\" data-src=\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Cirata-Floating-Solar-Power-Plant-in-West-Java-Indonesia_-ZUMA-Press_Alamy_2RTBNGH.jpg\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Cirata-Floating-Solar-Power-Plant-in-West-Java-Indonesia_-ZUMA-Press_Alamy_2RTBNGH-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Cirata-Floating-Solar-Power-Plant-in-West-Java-Indonesia_-ZUMA-Press_Alamy_2RTBNGH-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Cirata-Floating-Solar-Power-Plant-in-West-Java-Indonesia_-ZUMA-Press_Alamy_2RTBNGH.jpg 2560w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 768px, (max-width: 1024px) 1024px, 2560px\" alt=\"Floating Solar Power Plant\"\/><\/div><div class=\"block--article-image__content\"><div itemprop=\"caption\" class=\"block--article-image__caption\">PowerChina\u2019s Cirata floating solar power plant in West Java, Indonesia, 2023\u00a0(Image: ZUMA Press \/ Alamy\uff09<\/div><\/div><\/div><meta itemprop=\"contentUrl\" content=\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Cirata-Floating-Solar-Power-Plant-in-West-Java-Indonesia_-ZUMA-Press_Alamy_2RTBNGH.jpg\"\/><meta itemprop=\"contentSize\" content=\"2 MB\"\/><meta itemprop=\"height\" content=\"1707\"\/><meta itemprop=\"width\" content=\"2560\"\/><meta itemprop=\"author\"\/><meta itemprop=\"representativeOfPage\" content=\"true\"\/><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>The US hardening, then, was fuelled not only by mounting <a href=\"https:\/\/americansolartradecmte.org\/leading-u-s-solar-manufacturers-file-trade-petitions-to-combat-chinas-illegal-amp-harmful-trade-practices-in-vietnam-malaysia-cambodia-and-thailand-wiley-rein-llp-reports\/\">calls<\/a> to protect its manufacturers and workers from foreign competition, or a president who calls tariffs \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2025\/04\/09\/nx-s1-5355661\/tariffs-history-meaning\">the most beautiful word<\/a>\u201d, but also by intensified strategic competition over the energy technologies of the future and the components they require. So when a US Department of Commerce investigation found that Chinese solar firms operating in Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam were receiving subsidies and \u201cbeing dumped into the US market\u201d, it is unsurprising that the response was sharp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nor is it surprising that Chinese leader Xi Jinping hit back, repeating that \u201cthere are no winners in a trade war\u201d. But Xi\u2019s response did not end there. In mid-April, he visited Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia in his first overseas trip of the year, not only to reassure Southeast Asian partners of China\u2019s support amid the Trump-induced chaos, but also to deepen the country\u2019s economic, political and security relationships in the region, building again on a longer-term geopolitical project around China-centric regional integration, seen in the <a href=\"https:\/\/carnegieendowment.org\/research\/2023\/12\/the-mekong-region-is-a-test-of-chinas-global-development-and-security-model?lang=en\">Lancang-Mekong Cooperation <\/a>framework. This included a raft of new deals \u2013 45 in Vietnam, 37 in Cambodia and 31 in Malaysia \u2013 around infrastructure, green production, supply chains and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a class=\"wp-block-cd-related-news alignright block--related-news loading\" data-post-id=\"60082280\"><div class=\"block--related-news__image\"><\/div><div class=\"block--related-news__content\"><span class=\"block--related-news__heading\">Recommended<\/span><span class=\"block--related-news__title\"><\/span><\/div><\/a>\n\n\n\n<p>Similarly, Xi didn\u2019t lose time in positioning China not only as champions of continued trade and integration, but also climate cooperation. In April, he appeared at a virtual UN summit ahead of the COP30 climate talks in Brazil, implicitly referring to the US as he reaffirmed that \u201cChina\u2019s actions to address climate change will not slow down despite global political developments\u201d, and emphasised his country\u2019s continued commitment to the Paris Agreement \u2013 a treaty once <a href=\"https:\/\/obamawhitehouse.archives.gov\/the-press-office\/2015\/09\/25\/us-china-joint-presidential-statement-climate-change\">underpinned<\/a> by US-China cooperation and made possible partly by the falling price of low-carbon technologies that China\u2019s industrial policy helped to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nrel.gov\/news\/program\/2021\/documenting-a-decade-of-cost-declines-for-pv-systems.html\">realise<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-new-nexus\">New nexus<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>What does this mean for climate progress? First, that understanding its future in emerging markets \u2013 those making crucial decisions today about their economies, whether on the African continent, in Latin America, or Southeast Asia \u2013 requires a closer watch on trade, finance and geoeconomics, with a particular focus on China and the stakes of emerging and heightening US-China competition. Second, that in an increasingly fractured and disordered world, if the hope for coordinated global action embodied by institutions such as the UNFCCC, for example, feels ever more distant \u2013 that\u2019s because it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yet, forces of decarbonisation \u2013 seen in continued deployment and competition around renewable energy, EVs and more \u2013 are afoot. To a remarkable degree, the power of the nation state, and the technological forces it can help to unleash through aggressive action, are also undisputed. In this context, climate strategies that take as their starting point not multilateral consensus and planetary governance but a state-centric approach \u2013 with an emphasis on national security, border tariffs, and industrial policy \u2013 become increasingly relevant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Take, for example, the approach proposed by two US Republican senators in April. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cassidy.senate.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/FPFA-2025.pdf\">Foreign Pollution Fee Act<\/a> proposed by senators Bill Cassidy and Lindsey Graham has found support not only from climate groups, but also from industry seeking protection for US manufacturing in competition with China. \u201cThere\u2019s a nexus between climate, national security, economic security and energy policy,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eenews.net\/articles\/republicans-tap-trumps-love-of-tariffs-in-new-carbon-bill-2\/\">said<\/a> Cassidy. \u201cIf you set up a policy which simultaneously addresses this nexus, then you can achieve all four. And that\u2019s the goal of this policy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a class=\"wp-block-cd-related-news alignright block--related-news loading\" data-post-id=\"60070143\"><div class=\"block--related-news__image\"><\/div><div class=\"block--related-news__content\"><span class=\"block--related-news__heading\">Recommended<\/span><span class=\"block--related-news__title\"><\/span><\/div><\/a>\n\n\n\n<p>If this sounds consonant with China\u2019s approach, it\u2019s because it is. China\u2019s national energy strategy is dynamic, but has never abandoned a focus on security, defined in terms of self-sufficiency for national security, rather than interdependence and imports for flexibility. In sum, we can take seriously Xi\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/strategicspace.nbr.org\/energy-as-a-strategic-space-for-china-words-and-actions-point-to-a-competitive-future\/\">words<\/a> to oilfield workers in 2021 that the country must \u201censure that its \u2018energy rice bowl\u2019 remains in its own hands\u201d, and note that China at the same time seeks to transform, particularly through renewables, into an \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/rmi.org\/the-race-to-the-top-in-six-charts-and-not-too-many-numbers\/\">electrostate<\/a>\u201d that substitutes molecular fuels with electrons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A new world of climate politics is emerging. It does not mean an end to global decarbonisation, but foregrounds the role of the state, international trade and its discontents, and the geopolitics that runs through that, rather than the multilateral fora of the last decade. In this new world, what role does China, a developmental state at the heart of global energy transitions, trade and production, play? As its economy slows and countries demand greater commitment to value addition and technology transfer, might China redouble its efforts in a \u201cMarshall Plan\u201d based on green production? Or, as Trump and the \u201cvibe shift\u201d sees a dramatic rollback in global commitments and focus on ESG, will Chinese financial institutions and companies beat a similar retreat?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Working out answers to these questions is now central to understanding the new world of climate politics. The urgency of doing so couldn\u2019t be more important.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Multilateral climate diplomacy looks increasingly defunct. Instead, geopolitics, trade and the power of the state matter more than ever, writes Sam Geall<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":60082843,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","categories":[761],"tags":[50041544,50040720,50041595,580,600],"country":[50000021,20029278,20000110,50040718,50040700,20028207,50003615],"class_list":["post-60082811","opinion","type-opinion","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate","tag-climate-diplomacy","tag-geopolitics","tag-global-heating","tag-policy","tag-trade","country-brazil","country-cambodia","country-china","country-malaysia","country-united-states-of-america","country-vietnam","country-world-2"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v26.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The shape of a new climate politics emerges<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Multilateral climate diplomacy looks increasingly defunct. 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