"Climate realism" stresses security, mitigation and resilience
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An ambitious new effort to reframe the U.S. approach to climate is taking a sledgehammer to shibboleths on the left and the right.
Why it matters: The Climate Realism Initiative warns of massive threats to the U.S., while arguing the country's past approach focused on the wrong things.
The big picture: The initiative "says two things that almost never get uttered in the same sentence," said Varun Sivaram, director of the new Council on Foreign Relations program.
- "I think climate is a grave national security threat on the level of all-out war," he said ahead of today's launch.
- "On the other hand, I don't actually think that spending a trillion dollars on reducing American emissions expensively and not very intelligently is the right policy response."
Driving the news: Sivaram, a former top aide to Biden-era U.S. climate diplomat John Kerry (among other gigs), just penned an essay that sets the stage for the seven-figure program.
It warns of "fallacies" including:
- Thinking that Paris temperature targets are achievable.
- Thinking that cutting U.S. emissions can make a meaningful difference, noting the U.S. will be roughly 5% of future cumulative emissions this century.
- Believing that climate change poses manageable risks to U.S. prosperity and security.
What's next: His piece argues U.S. policymakers should brace for warming of at least 3°C this century. The country must prepare for the migration, security and resilience ramifications.
Other parts of the "realism" doctrine that centers U.S. economic and security interests include:
- Focus on industries where the U.S. will have an edge, like next-gen geothermal, advanced nuclear, and solid-state batteries — and work to disseminate this tech globally.
- Elevate climate as a top national security priority.
- Develop and test geoengineering.
The doctrine also says advanced economies should use trade tools that penalize nations with large, fast-rising emissions.
State of play: It brings together established names in wonk-world, such as David Hart, Lindsay Iversen and Alice Hill.
- Sivaram tells Axios that the approach isn't pegged to the Trump administration, which largely rejects the problem of climate change.
- "Tomorrow, the Trump administration is probably not going to make a complete about-face and agree that climate poses deep national security threats to the United States," he said, though he adds that some work will continue quietly.
- But in the long run — and even within the next couple of years — the initiative's framing can "make climate palatable to administrations of both parties," he said.
The bottom line: Sivaram stressed in our interview that he was speaking and writing for himself, and that different scholars taking part will have different views.
- But overall, the new program isn't interested in tinkering at the margins on policy and the overall theory of the case.
