Climate change is a challenge that transcends borders and destabilizes international structures. In 2024, the average temperature rise reached 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels – a threshold established by the 2015 Paris Agreement as the critical limit to mitigate irreversible damage. 2024 is predicted to be “the hottest year on record” by the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. This milestone illustrates our collective failure to contain climate change, signaling the need for a new era in which international governments prioritize cutting fossil fuels, accelerating the transition to clean energy, and reducing pollution.
As governments grapple with this pressing reality, political dynamics are being fundamentally redefined. Thus far, The failure to halt global warming has forced governments to deal with new environmental challenges and accentuated a need to find solutions that can prevent natural disasters. At this stage, it is essential to analyze how this environmental and human crisis impacts international politics.
The Lancet Countdown and its Political Resonance
The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change is a multidisciplinary report by independent scientists that analyzes the impacts of climate change on health, a report crucial to assess the evolution of governments’ responses to the global scale of this challenge. The Countdown tracks the impacts of climate change and government responses across five critical domains: climate impacts, adaptation, mitigation, economics, and public engagement. Considering these aspects together highlights the profound consequences of climate change, and gives insight into how it reshapes international relations.
Political and Social Impacts of Extreme Heat and Precipitation
The Lancet’s findings on extreme heat and shifting precipitation patterns present dire implications for international stability. Rising global temperatures intensify extreme heat, threatening food security and provoking unrest.
For instance, India’s recently been struggling with an intensification of social and political tensions due to climate change. After poor crop yields in 2021-2022, the world’s second-largest wheat exporter stopped wheat exports amid soaring domestic prices. Since 2020, farmers in India have been struggling due to low crop yields, have held mass protests, and have been demanding a legal guarantee from the government to expand the Minimum Support Price (MSP). Farmers, the biggest voting bloc in India, successfully pressured PM Modi to cancel reforms loosening crop sale rules.
Meanwhile, record precipitation has intensified challenges for countries with areas close to sea level, like Spain, which experienced devastating floods in October 2024 that took at least 205 lives and left dozens more missing. Despite issuing heavy rainfall warnings on the 25th, the regional government of Valencia did not upgrade to the highest red alert level until 8 pm on the 29th, by which time multiple cities and towns had been flooded for hours. Two previous years of drought left the ground too hard to absorb water, worsening flash flooding. On the ninth of November, over 100,000 protestors demonstrated in the eastern city of Valencia, demanding that regional government leader Carlos Mazon resign for mishandling the disaster. India and Spain are just two examples that show how climate change is already shaping international politics, as governments are increasingly tested by the social and political fallout of extreme weather events.
Adapting to the Energy Transitions: International Agreements and Challenges
A transition away from fossil fuels to clean energy is necessary to avoid the relentless build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. By mid-2024, 107 countries – responsible for over 80 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions – pledged to achieve net-zero emissions. Yet, fossil fuel consumption continues to rise, driven by geopolitical crises like Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. That year, fossil fuel subsidies in 84 per cent of countries – out of 86 reviewed – outweighed carbon taxes, incentivizing continued fossil fuel use. With global contributions of subsidies – largely from China, the US and Russia – totalling a staggering $1.4 trillion, this contradiction highlights the daunting challenge of transitioning away from fossil fuels. More positively, global clean energy investments reached $1.9 trillion in 2023, 73 per cent greater than for fossil fuels. This signals a significant political and financial interest in clean energy, although the gap between investment and widespread implementation remains a hurdle.
A large-scale clean energy transition would signify a shift in global power. Countries leading in green technology and controlling critical raw materials, such as China and the Democratic Republic of Congo, are poised to gain influence, while traditional fossil fuel providers may experience a temporary surge in importance as the market shrinks. The continued reliance on fossil fuels following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine illustrates the complex interplay between climate concerns and international politics. It also highlights the paradox of addressing climate change normatively while actively materially endorsing the very practices that exacerbate it.
The Future of International Politics in a Changing Climate
In an era where climate change intersects with every dimension of international relations, the stakes for coordinated global action are higher than ever. Promising sustainability strides have been made. Clean energy investment increased, and in countries with climate-informed health systems, the mean mortality rate of extreme weather events decreased by 74 per cent between 2000-09 and 2014-23. Intensified by high energy prices, the continuous subsidization of fossil fuels reveals the economic and political challenges hindering a clean energy transition. This inertia not only delays the energy transition but actively intensifies the very crisis these policies aim to address. Moving forward, international governments must prioritize both mitigation and adaptation measures. This dual focus is critical—not only to limit future warming but to respond to the existing impacts already reshaping communities, economies, and political landscapes worldwide. The path forward demands bold, coordinated efforts to navigate the complex intersection of climate and international politics.
Edited by Malin Braendeland
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and they do not reflect the position of the McGill Journal of Political Science or the Political Science Students’ Association.
Featured image by Jaigascom through Wikimedia Commons
