Geopolitics and Climate Policy
By Angel Chua, mentored by Ho Jean Nie
Climate change is a deeply politicised issue1 — the very countries that negotiate and execute climate policy each carry their individual histories, interests and rivalries to the table. While geopolitics has indeed hindered climate action, this essay argues that the relationship between the two is not inherently antagonistic; geopolitics also carries the potential to accelerate climate action through competition, energy security and regionalisation, ultimately driving more sustainable outcomes.
An obstacle towards climate progress
There is little doubt that geopolitics can impede climate progress. This has manifested in several ways, with one of the most striking examples being armed conflict. Environmental damage from war begins even before conflict starts through land use and military training, and continues in the form of military emissions, landscape and geodiversity loss, and pollution.2 Moreover, geopolitical conflicts also indirectly divert budget allocations and media attention away from climate mitigation to military purposes.3
Beyond armed conflict, geopolitics also plays out through the clashing of economic and political interests between states determined to pursue their interests. The US-China rivalry aptly illustrates this dynamic — indeed, after Nancy Pelosi’s 2022 visit to Taiwan, relations between the two soured and China suspended bilateral climate talks.4 To the US, China’s rise has been interpreted as a threat to US primacy and national security;5 the Trump administration has pursued bilateral trade agreements designed to exclude China6 and imposed tariffs on China’s essential clean energy technologies.7 This was in addition to the 50% levy on solar cells and 25% tariff on EV batteries imposed by the Biden administration.8 Such measures artificially inflate the costs of the energy transition and constrains the ability of other countries to integrate cheap and scalable climate solutions,10 which ultimately devastates global climate progress.
Moreover, countries with geopolitical leverage, such as dominance over critical mineral supply chains, frequently use their advantage to water down international climate agreements and delay timelines.11 This has stalled progress in forums from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol12 to the 2015 Paris Agreement13 and beyond. At the 2023 COP28 in the UAE, for example, fossil fuel-rich countries like Saudi Arabia, backed by the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (“OPEC”), resisted the phase-out of fossil fuels and used procedural tactics to impede negotiations.14
As for the countries most vulnerable to climate change, such as Small Island Developing States (“SIDS”) and sub-Saharan African states,15 they hold the least power in international negotiations despite having contributed the least to climate change.16 Power asymmetry caused by geopolitics thus excludes these countries with the most at stake from shaping the response to their own crises. Meanwhile, large emerging economies like India, Brazil, and Indonesia face pressure to forgo the cheap, fossil fuel-powered development path that wealthy nations used to industrialise and build prosperity.17 It is a difficult ask that seems like a double standard: the same countries that freely burned coal for a century now ask others to take a more expensive route. In this vein, emerging economies in turn hold their own moral leverage to slow negotiations until wealthier nations make good on climate finance promises.18 Yet progress largely seems symbolic — the loss and damage fund established at COP27, which commits wealthy nations to support vulnerable countries disproportionately affected by climate change, remains critically underfunded.19 These examples demonstrate that geopolitics can and undeniably have obstructed climate progress.
Flipping the script: How geopolitics accelerate climate action
Notwithstanding the above, the very same forces of self-interest and rivalry can, under the right conditions, be redirected to accelerate climate progress.
Energy security
Paradoxically, geopolitics can push states toward climate action to reduce strategic vulnerabilities, such as dependence on imported fossil fuels and exposure to price shocks. The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine is a case in point: even as it exposed Russia’s dominance over European natural gas supplies,20 it simultaneously propelled Europe’s push for renewable energy and energy efficiency. Established to reduce dependence moving forward, the resulting REPowerEU plan drove record investment, with renewables generating 47% of the EU’s electricity in 2024.21
This pattern extends beyond the EU to individual states acting in their own strategic interest. More recently, the 2026 Iran conflict and its disruption of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz sent energy prices soaring, but at the same time pushed governments to rethink energy security and invest in renewables.22 To be precise, energy security does not intrinsically favour clean energy — it favours domestic energy. Where domestic energy means coal, as in parts of China and India, security concerns cut against decarbonisation; the International Energy Agency (“IEA”) projects coal investment will reach USD 180 billion in 2026, its highest since 2012, with China alone accounting for almost 70% of global coal supply spending. Additionally, some Asian countries affected by the current crisis may extend the operations of existing coal-fired power plants to bolster energy security. But for fuel-importing states, energy security increasingly points toward renewables: over 90% of new utility-scale renewable capacity added in 2025 was cheaper than the lowest-cost fossil alternative.23 Further, the IEA estimates that global energy investment will hit a record USD 3.4 trillion in 2026, with USD 2.2 trillion flowing to clean energy24 — nearly double the amount going to fossil fuels. Countries also seek to diversify supply chains and forge new bilateral partnerships: for instance, South Korea has deepened its green partnership with the EU to diversify its own supply chains,25 while Singapore is pursuing cross-border renewable energy imports from Laos, Indonesia, and Australia to reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels.26 In these cases, geopolitics catalyses climate progress through the pursuit of energy security and economic resilience.
The “green race”
Geopolitics also drives global climate action as major powers race to dominate industries like EVs, batteries, solar manufacturing, and AI-enabled energy systems. China has aggressively led this “green race”, using massive state subsidies to dominate global manufacturing.27 Today, it is the largest exporter of clean technologies, with the IEA projecting its net exports exceeding USD 340 billion by 2035.28 Unwilling to cede that ground, the US enacted the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (“IRA”);29 although the Trump administration has rolled back many clean energy policies,30 the initial wave of the IRA has catalysed investment in these emerging markets.31 In response, the European Commission launched the Green Deal Industrial Plan in 2023, designed to boost the competitiveness of Europe’s net-zero industry.32
Such competition has significantly accelerated the global green transition by catalysing investment and innovation and driving down the cost of renewable technology worldwide.33 Increasingly recognising green industries as engines of future economic growth, emerging economies are also racing to capture these markets. For instance, India’s Production Linked Incentive (“PLI”) scheme offers robust subsidies to boost domestic manufacturing of solar modules, batteries, and EVs.34 Concurrently, developing countries also serve as critical demand centres, driving growth in clean technology exports.35
Aside from industrial competition, climate leadership has emerged as a source of international influence and diplomatic standing,36 whether through financing green infrastructure abroad or hosting climate negotiations. China’s Belt and Road Initiative (“BRI”), for example, has pivoted toward green energy exports to deepen its geopolitical influence in the Global South.37 The EU hassimilarly backed green hydrogen and lithium extraction projectsin Kazakhstan, alongside solar power and digital grids in Chile and Kenya.38 Moreover, following the US’ withdrawal from the Indonesia Just Energy Transition Partnership (“JETP”) in early 2025, Germany stepped in alongside existing co-lead Japan to champion the USD 20 billion decarbonisation framework.39 Collectively, these developments illustrate how geopolitical influence has propelled climate ambition and progress.
The regionalisation of climate cooperation
While a handful of dominant powers once negotiated primarily through the UN, a framework which often overshadows smaller players, the landscape of power is shifting today: mid-sized and smaller countries have banded together outside this big-power framework, forming their own coalitions to strengthen their hand. Arguably, this fragmentation creates complementary tracks to climate cooperation that may move faster on specific deliverables than the UN’s consensus model.
Unlike the UN framework which often faces impasses due to competing major-power interests, regional coalitions like the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (“ASEAN”) link climate action directly to regional goals.40 A few examples include ASEAN’s Catalytic Green Finance Facility (“ACGF”), which has channelled over USD 1.8 billion in financing green infrastructure across Southeast Asia,41 as well as the ASEAN Power Grid (“APG”), which integrates the power grids in Southeast Asia to share clean electricity, while simultaneously reducing dependence on volatile global energy markets.42
Likewise, the BRICS bloc — originally consisting of founding members Brazil-Russia-India China-South Africa, and subsequently expanded to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates — has also forged mechanisms to facilitate the green transition within the realities of emerging economies. The New Development Bank (“NDB”) established by the BRICS founding members has channelled billions of dollars into sustainable infrastructure across the Global South through issuing green bonds and local-currency financing.43 Meanwhile, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (“CPTPP”) takes a different approach: its Environment Chapter includes binding environmental commitments to trade law,44 which are enforceable through formal dispute settlement processes (albeit untested to date).45 Member states can levy tariffs against those who reverse environmental protections — this is a much sharper enforcement tool in contrast to other climate pacts that rely on non-binding, self reported targets and peer-pressure.
The above examples of ASEAN, BRICS and the CPTPP point to an emerging pattern: geopolitics have spurred the formation of smaller, purpose-built regional blocs that are built on genuinely aligned state interests. Free from the UN framework that demands to accommodate every major power’s interests, these carry real potential to drive climate progress much faster than the UN framework alone.
Where interests converge amid rivalries
Briefly, as a final point, climate cooperation itself is not mutually exclusive to geopolitical rivalry: where interests converge, there can still be cooperation. Take the US and China for example — although relations deteriorated after Nancy Pelosi’s 2022 visit to Taiwan, the two countries resumed climate talks by late 2023. They issued the Sunnylands Statement, in which they agreed to cooperate on issues including methane emissions, renewable energy deployment, and the energy transition ahead of COP28.46 Ultimately, climate change creates costs and threats that neither side can avoid, and meaningful global climate progress is difficult without both countries’ participation as the world’s two largest emitters. 47 As seen, even amid geopolitical rivalry, states can compartmentalise and execute climate policy.
Conclusion
While geopolitics impedes climate action by fracturing international cooperation, not all is lost — it also reshapes states’ incentives in ways that can accelerate climate progress, through energy security, competition and regionalisation.
However, within this optimistic framing lies an important caveat: the same rivalry that produces tariff walls also fuels subsidy race. Whereas protectionism raises the cost of deploying clean technology, industrial competition expands its supply. More fundamentally, climate action driven solely by strategic self-interest remains fragile.48
The challenge then, in a crisis that will not wait for a more cooperative world order, is to keep those capabilities moving across borders, extend finance to the countries the market will otherwise bypass, and ensure clean technologies displace fossil energy rather than simply add another layer to global consumption. More broadly, it is to design frameworks that align strategic interests with climate ambition — making green outcomes the path of least resistance even for rival states.
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