The skyline of New York City’s lower Manhattan is reflected in the Hudson River. New York City is one of several American cities that will face severe flooding this century. Gary Hershorn/Getty Images
U.S. policymakers need a new strategy to confront the risks of climate change, compete in the global energy transition, and stay the course regardless of which political party is in power. A doctrine of “climate realism” could earn bipartisan support by decisively pursuing American interests.
Article by Varun Sivaram
April 7, 2025 12:06 am (EST)
The U.S. response to climate change represents a profound foreign policy failure. 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.