Right turn gone wrong: The rise of right-wing populism will harm the environment and exacerbate climate problems

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“We'll drill, baby, drill!”

Such was the promise Donald Trump made in his inaugural address, perfectly capturing the gist of his energy and climate policy. Immediately after taking office for the second time, the president signed several executive orders on energy and climate policy. America is now set to leave the Paris Climate Agreement within a year, to accelerate oil and gas projects on federal land, to ban the lease of further continental shelf land for the construction of offshore wind farms, to eliminate state-level restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions from ground transport, and to cut federal subsidies for electric vehicle charging stations.

Donald Trump is a known climate skeptic. In November 2020, he withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement — only to see President Joe Biden rejoin the agreement three months later. Now Trump's second victory has damaged global climate action yet again. The U.S. — the world's second-largest greenhouse gas emitter — is cancelling its obligations to past climate commitments, thereby setting an example for countries like China, which is responsible for 30% of the world’s annual greenhouse gas emissions.

Argentina, currently governed by prominent climate skeptic Javier Milei, may also withdraw from the Paris Agreement. Meanwhile, his country has recently been struggling with the real-world effects of climate change, facing heat waves, severe droughts, and devastating floods.

Trump has frozen billions of dollars in clean energy and climate change funding. The U.S. has also suspended nearly all foreign aid, causing a wave of layoffs among USAID humanitarian personnel and the termination of all of its programs. USAID supported low-income countries by promoting renewable energy development, climate change adaptation, and disaster protection, among other initiatives.

Carbon Brief estimates that Trump's return to the White House will result in the U.S. emitting 11% more greenhouse gasses by 2030 than it would have under normal circumstances — an additional 4 billion tons of CO2 equivalent on top of the annual 6 billion the country currently releases.

These prospects are all very disturbing. However, not all disruptive innovations will be put into practice, as some of them require lengthy procedures and approvals. Second, U.S. states have considerable powers, and the battle for climate leadership may well intensify between states, as well as between cities and companies.

Finally, even if the federal government gives away land to interests involved in oil extraction, energy producers will not necessarily start “drilling, baby, drilling” immediately. The U.S. is not a command economy, and every private company makes independent business decisions for itself. At the moment, there is no shortage of oil on the market — hence the unappealing prices — and the green transition is still in progress.

European populism and climate

In Germany, France, Italy, and other European countries, far-right parties, known for their climate skepticism, are gaining support. Populists propose “simple solutions” to complex problems, and some of these solutions imply weakening environmental regulation and giving up the fight on the climate change front. Solving the climate crisis will require real effort, and it is easier for right-wing populists to simply tell their voters that there is no climate crisis.

Such is the position of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which treats climate change as a far-fetched problem and suggests rolling back Germany's energy transition policy. However, even though the AfD finished second in recent Bundestag elections, it has yet to find any willing coalition partners.

In France, following the triumph of Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally party in the European Parliament elections last summer, President Emmanuel Macron announced early parliamentary elections. The French far-right failed to win, but National Rally and its allies increased their number of seats in parliament from 89 to 142. National Rally calls the EU Green Deal, which aims to achieve climate neutrality by 2050, a tool of punitive environmentalism. The right wing presents the energy transition as a burden on French citizens and lobbies for tax cuts for conventional energy and a freeze on new wind power projects.

In Italy, elections in 2022 brought the far-right to power for the first time since Mussolini’s day. The country is governed by a coalition consisting of the Brothers of Italy (first place in the elections), Lega, and Forza Italia, a center-right party founded by Silvio Berlusconi. Brothers of Italy and its allies have always been skeptical of climate change, often characterizing the green transition as ideologically biased. So far in international meetings, they have stuck to official EU rhetoric, but they have nevertheless sought to put the brakes on many climate initiatives, including the ban on sales of new cars with internal combustion engines starting from 2035.

War and climate

Wars and armed conflicts also impact the environment, as regular people and politicians alike tend to lose focus on global warming when more immediate events threaten global security. The climate is changing gradually, meaning there are still a couple of decades before catastrophic events are likely to occur — but the wars are already underway.

According to Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED), at least 233,000 people were killed in armed conflicts worldwide in 2024. Over the past five years, the number of conflict events — not only combat activity but also dispersal of protests, violence against civilians, seizure of land, and so on — has almost doubled, from 104,000 events in 2020 to nearly 200,000 in 2024.

This significant increase is due to the outbreak or resurgence of large conflicts in Ukraine, in the Middle East, and in Myanmar, set against the backdrop of continuing violence in many conflict-prone countries and regions including Sudan, Mexico, Yemen, and the Sahel.

Warfare itself is also a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Military vehicles consume huge amounts of fossil fuels, and combat activities often cause urban and forest fires and accidents at oil refineries or dams — as was the case with the Kakhovka Dam in Ukraine. In addition, wars often lengthen freight and passenger transportation routes, also increasing emissions.

According to a recent study by the Initiative of Greenhouse Gas Accounting of War, the first two years of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine resulted in additional greenhouse gas emissions of 175 million tons of CO2 equivalent, a figure that exceeds the annual emissions of the Netherlands.

This number takes into account not only emissions from combustion of fuel for military vehicles and aircraft, weapons production, fortification construction, and war-induced fires, but also future emissions that will arise from reconstruction. The Conflict and Environment Observatory (CEOBS) calculates that the armed forces of all countries in the world accounted for around 5.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2020. If all the world's armies were one country, it would be the fourth largest emitter of greenhouse gases, ranking below China, the U.S., and India, but outpacing Russia.

Importantly, this assessment is based on pre-pandemic data and does not reflect the escalation of the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.

Why the world struggles to reach an agreement

The need to fight climate change is becoming more urgent. The year 2024 was yet another warmest year in recorded history, and for the first time, the annual average global air temperature exceeded the pre-industrial level (1850-1900) by more than 1.5 °C, which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) views as the threshold for a safe temperature increase.

The goal of staying below that threshold is enshrined in the Paris Agreement, the main international document to date on combating climate change, signed in 2015 by 195 countries. One year above the 1.5 °C limit does not mean a climate catastrophe, and the Paris Agreement refers to a long-term temperature rise. But there is little hope for improvement, scientists warn.

As many as 147 countries have committed to achieving climate or carbon neutrality by around mid-century or a little later. Carbon neutrality involves offsetting any remaining carbon dioxide emissions by absorbing the greenhouse gas from the atmosphere — by protecting and regrowing forests, for instance. Achieving climate neutrality, meanwhile, requires offsetting emissions of all greenhouse gases — not only CO2, but also methane, nitrous oxide, and others.

The IPCC notes that greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced by 43% from 2019 levels before 2030 and by 60% before 2035 if we are to limit global warming to 1.5 °C in the 21st century. However, the 2024 Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) Synthesis Report by the Paris Agreement secretariat warns that the current targets are extremely low. Even if the countries' available NDCs are fully implemented, greenhouse gas emissions will only be reduced by 2.6% from 2019 levels by 2030.

Despite years of international efforts, there is still insufficient understanding between developed and developing countries on climate issues. Late in 2024, Baku hosted COP29, and one of its main outcomes was a new climate funding target for developing countries: $300 billion a year from developed countries by 2035. The previous goal, adopted in 2009, called for $100 billion a year by 2020. That funding goal was met, but only by extending the deadline, as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) assessed that developed countries mobilized a total of $115.9 billion in climate finance for developing countries in 2022, surpassing the $100 billion mark for the first time.

The new target of $300 billion a year disappointed developing countries and climate activists, who were counting on $1.3 trillion, which is exactly how much developing countries other than China need from all external sources through 2035 in order to reach their climate goals. The $1.3 trillion a year figure did make it into the final COP29 document, which calls on all participants (developed and developing countries alike) to try and find that kind of money from public and private sources by 2035.

The Global South has traditionally (and rightly) demanded financial compensation from the Global North for climate change — which, after all, is caused largely by the long-term economic activities of developed countries. The developed countries began the industrial revolution and were the first to use massive amounts of fossil fuels. They also participated in the colonization of many developing countries, coupled with the exploitation of their natural resources and irresponsible treatment of their environment.

However, the reluctance of the Global North to pay up is not the only barrier separating developing countries from the green transition. The OECD noted that 80% of climate finance is public. For private investors, climate finance for developing countries is too risky due to rampant corruption, political and economic challenges, underdeveloped regulation, and lack of technical expertise, among other factors.

For one, the country may be lacking a clear and transparent mechanism for foreign investors to earn a return on capital put into renewable energy. In this case, investors will opt for opportunities in a Western country, where the projected return may be low, but the risk of a loss is much lower.

There are ways to mitigate the risks, such as engaging international development banks to work out a mechanism to support renewable energy and build capacity at home and abroad. However, some problems persist for decades, such as protracted military conflicts in several African countries.

Therefore, the new climate finance target is likely realistic. Even so, for it to be fulfilled, the entire world will have to make a huge effort. Developing countries need to roll up their sleeves to fight corruption, build quality institutions, and provide guarantees of return on investment. A one-sided effort will not bring about change on the ground.

And as the world is being drawn further and further into armed conflicts and populist politics, the climate crisis grows ever more acute. Importantly, global warming threatens to further fuel violence, putting more and more people in impossible conditions and triggering new conflicts over territory and resources — which will, in turn, further accelerate climate change.

If right-wingers and populists succeed in weakening the fight against climate change, humanity will face more frequent and deadlier extreme weather events, including droughts, floods, heat waves, and wildfires. Even the current levels of global warming have had devastating consequences, as extreme heat alone kills about 500,000 people a year. If greenhouse gas emissions simply remain at their current levels, temperatures could rise by 3ºC above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. Under that scenario, nearly 600 million people could face flooding due to rising sea levels, and food production would be halved. Cities will be particularly affected by heat waves, and those in Southern and Central Europe could find themselves located in a desert. Such developments would only increase the struggle over the world’s least climate-affected areas and resources.