The United States faces ever-worsening risks from climate change, with no relief in sight. A convenient excuse for dismal results is that only administrations and lawmakers on one side of the aisle have prioritized climate, enacting policies that are promptly reversed when political power switches hands. Every four years, the United States joins or exits the Paris Agreement and lavishly spends billions of dollars on clean energy subsidies or claws them back.
Yet, the very fact that climate has no political staying power is an indictment of the policy approach presented to U.S. voters, not a valid excuse for why those policies inevitably fail. While Washington dithers, foreign climate-warming emissions—the vast majority of the world’s total—threaten the American homeland with ever-worsening disasters. And decades of poorly targeted domestic subsidies have failed to make U.S. clean technologies competitive with those of China’s.
The United States needs a new doctrine for its approach to climate change, one that rises above today’s partisan disagreements, pragmatically advances U.S. interests, and aligns with the priorities of American voters. Climate realism draws inspiration from sound arguments that have bipartisan appeal while jettisoning misguided proposals championed by partisans on the left and the right.
Debunking Four Fallacies
The climate realism doctrine is both realist and realistic. It is realist in that it prioritizes advancing U.S. interests and recognizes that other countries will single-mindedly prioritize their own interests. And it is realistic by dispensing with four fallacies that too often muddle policy thinking on climate.
1. The world’s climate targets are achievable. They are not. The 2015 Paris Agreement’s internationally agreed target of limiting the global average temperature to “well below” 2°C (3.6°F) by century-end will almost certainly be breached, given that global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise. Similarly, the target of net-zero emissions by 2050 is utterly implausible. The world is likely on track to warm on average by 3°C (5.4°F) or more this century.
To be sure, clean energy has made remarkable progress. Solar power is now the cheapest and fastest-growing power source on the planet. But the roughly $10 trillion in annual investments to fundamentally overhaul the global economy and infrastructure base is more than voters and governments around the world are willing to shoulder. And the innovations that would enable deep decarbonization of high-emissions sectors, such as heavy industries and long-distance transportation, remain far from commercialization. The preponderance of available data signals that the global economy will fail to reach net-zero emissions in the twenty-first century.
2. Reducing U.S. domestic greenhouse gas emissions can make a meaningful difference. U.S. domestic emissions will be largely irrelevant to global climate change. The trajectory of climate change in the twenty-first century will depend on future global cumulative emissions between 2025 and 2100. By that measure, the United States is on track to account for around 5 percent of global future cumulative emissions. China—as well as emerging and non-advanced economies including India, Indonesia, Brazil, and South Africa—will account for more than 85 percent of that total. Slowing climate change principally depends on reducing emissions outside of U.S. borders.
Many argue, however, that reducing U.S. emissions demonstrates international leadership, or signaling, that can persuade other countries to reduce their emissions. This is wrong as well. Unilateral U.S. emissions reductions do not change the fundamental calculus of other countries when it comes to decarbonizing their own economies. The evidence was clearest when the United States passed its Inflation Reduction Act, an expensive, $1.2 trillion subsidy package that would reduce future U.S. emissions. Countries across Asia, Europe, and more cried foul, far more outraged at the law’s effect on economic trade and support for U.S. domestic manufacturing than encouraged to reduce their own emissions.
3. Climate change poses a manageable risk to U.S. economic prosperity and national security. This is wishful thinking. The so-called “tail risks” from runaway climate change are both cataclysmic and too plausible to be ignored. Unfortunately, too much attention is paid to economists’ central estimates of climate damages, rather than to the tails. For example, the Congressional Budget Office’s central estimate is that by 2100, the United States will lose 6 percent of gross domestic (GDP) compared to a scenario with no climate change. This trivial loss of GDP might relegate climate change to a third-tier risk, well below a global pandemic or nuclear war.
Yet, these figures might underestimate climate’s impact by an order of magnitude or more. The risks of seven-foot sea-level rise, dramatically intensified hurricanes, wildfires, and hailstorms, and entire U.S. cities being wiped off the map this century are nontrivial. On a relative basis, the United States might emerge better off than other countries that are even harder hit. But damage on this scale could endanger the survival of American society as we know it.
4. The clean energy transition is necessarily a win-win for U.S. interests and climate action. In reality, the unfolding energy transition carries serious risks as well as potential opportunities for U.S. interests. The United States is the world’s largest oil and gas producer and one of its largest exporters, a position that brings U.S. energy security, economic prosperity, and global geopolitical leverage. However, China has emerged as by far the dominant producer of clean energy technologies, spanning solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, and electric vehicles. On its current course, a global transition to clean energy would degrade U.S. economic and security interests while advancing China’s. The only way to align U.S. interests with a clean energy transition is for the United States to develop innovative, globally competitive clean technology industries.
U.S. policymakers in both major parties have too often succumbed to one or more of these fallacies. Discarding them is the first step toward a clear-eyed and constructive agenda.
Given that U.S. emissions are trivial for global climate change, one of the most important ways the United States can reduce global emissions is by developing and disseminating next-generation clean technologies.
Three Pillars of the Climate Realism Doctrine
To be clear, climate realism should not simply entail accepting the harsh reality that U.S. options are limited and ignore the problem. Rather, U.S. policymakers can build a politically durable approach to climate and energy—addressing head on the grave risks to American security and prosperity—by advancing three imperatives:
1. Prepare for a world that dramatically blows through its climate targets. The central planning scenario for U.S. security and economic policymakers should be average global warming of at least 3°C this century. The global consequences will be grim. Mass migration of at least hundreds of millions of climate refugees could upend the international order, and increasingly grisly natural disasters around the world could overwhelm the humanitarian capacity of countries and international institutions. The United States should provide the support it can, cooperate with countries on building resilience capabilities, and protect its borders. In addition, accelerating climate change will dramatically reshape global geopolitics. The United States should prepare for global competition for resources and military positioning that is intensifying in the melting Arctic.
At home, the United States should invest proactively in resilience and adaptation. As disasters intensify, policymakers should prepare for mass internal migration and evacuations this century, avoid distortive policies that shield homeowners from insurance rates that would otherwise deter imprudent economic development, and dramatically ramp up investments in disaster response, management, and prevention. All of this will require substantial funding, and the worst climate impacts are decades away. Therefore, the United States must urgently balance its budget, pay down its debt, and create the fiscal headroom to protect its society for the decades and centuries to come.
2. Invest in globally competitive clean technology industries. To date, U.S. efforts on this front have failed miserably—and predictably. U.S. industrial policy in clean energy has too often failed to prioritize global competitiveness, instead prioritizing other goals such as local economic development. For example, of the $30 billion that the Joe Biden administration disbursed in grants and credits to support battery manufacturing, more than 90 percent was spent on existing lithium-ion batteries, a technology and supply chain China has convincingly won. U.S. investments under Biden were woefully inadequate in next-generation solid-state batteries, a technology that could vastly improve military drones, cellphones, and electric vehicles, and where U.S. companies have developed innovative technologies and are locked in a fierce battle with Asian competitors to get to market first.
Today, the top five U.S. export industries are oil and gas, fossil-fueled automobiles, gas turbines, and fossil-fueled airplanes. The extremely limited list of globally competitive U.S. clean technology products includes Tesla electric vehicles and GE Vernova wind turbines, both of which are losing global market share to China. To reverse this trend, U.S. policymakers should invest heavily in innovation and foster industries where the United States has a comparative advantage, such as next-generation geothermal, advanced nuclear, and solid-state batteries. Advancing U.S. innovations has the dual benefit of building domestic economic prosperity and reducing emissions around the world when emerging economies adopt American technologies. Given that U.S. emissions are trivial for global climate change, one of the most important ways the United States can reduce global emissions is by developing and disseminating next-generation clean technologies.
3. Lead international efforts to avert truly catastrophic climate change. Recognizing that the world will not meet its climate targets, there may still be hope to avert the worst, civilization-endangering impacts of climate change. The United States should elevate doing so as a top national security priority—on the level of averting nuclear war and engaging in great-power competition with China.
The most plausible route to averting the worst impacts of climate change is geoengineering. That such an approach—highly speculative and untested—is the current most feasible option speaks to how implausible a global net-zero transition currently is. Geoengineering includes radical ideas such as spewing aerosols into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight back into outer space and cool the planet. The United States should urgently develop and test such approaches at ever greater scales to prepare for a “break glass” emergency when these techniques may need to be deployed. The United States should also carefully evaluate the risks of these technologies and prepare to deter other countries from unilaterally deploying them, or cooperate internationally to do so.
Finally, the United States needs a strategy to work with like-minded partners to drive China and emerging economies—the source of most future cumulative greenhouse gas emissions—to slash their emissions. To date, approaches such as offering paltry financial aid have failed. Advanced economies should develop aggressive trade tools, tariffs, and so-called “climate clubs” that penalize countries with large and fast-growing emissions.
Granted, this approach is fundamentally unfair. Emerging economies often reasonably argue that they should have every right to the fossil fuel-led economic development that Western economies enjoyed. Nevertheless, the fact is that foreign emissions are endangering the American homeland. As greenhouse gas emissions exacerbate hurricanes and wildfires that level whole U.S. communities spanning North Carolina down to southern California, the effects resemble those if China or Indonesia were to launch missiles at the United States. Every tool of the U.S. and allies’ arsenals, spanning diplomatic and economic coercion to military might, should be on the table. Paradoxically, it could take climate deterrence to peacefully reduce global emissions and save the planet, just as nuclear deterrence leads to peaceful outcomes as a result of the specter of unimaginable warfare.
The Climate Realism doctrine represents a dramatic departure from how the United States has historically approached climate. Washington has too often sought to negotiate on behalf of the world—unlike, say, Saudi Arabia, which negotiates on behalf of its own interests and seeks to stop any curbs to its oil production. The United States has lavishly subsidized domestic clean energy industries to create quality jobs, which has proven expensive and ineffective at fostering globally competitive clean technology industries. And, it has held on too long to the fantasy of climate targets while underinvesting in preparations for accelerating climate change. A decisive shift toward the Climate Realism doctrine would jettison all aspects of the climate agenda that do not clearly advance U.S. competitiveness, resilience, and geopolitical advantage. In so doing, climate realism could force the world to take much more dramatic action to confront the climate quandary.
