Climate activists must beat populists at their own game

As Trump and his global far-right allies poison the public mood on decarbonisation, climate advocates must change tactics or risk losing momentum.

- Bhavan Jaipragas Deputy Opinion Editor

As nearly 50,000 delegates leave the Brazilian rainforest city of Belem this weekend after the conclusion of the COP30 United Nations climate talks, a sobering reality looms.

Even with all that has been reported about dysfunction — not least the absence of the United States for the first time in three decades, thanks to the climate heresy of President Donald Trump - optimists will insist the world is quietly winning the decarbonisation battle.

They will point to developments in climate diplomacy and leaps in the energy transition such as the ongoing global solar energy boom, and say the bearish realists who peddle only in bad-faith nihilism should be ignored.

These voices are only presenting part of the picture. The harder truth is that while today’s achievements far outstrip what campaigners dared imagine when the Paris Agreement was signed a decade ago, the political and cultural momentum behind climate action - especially in the West — is slowing, and in some countries already going into reverse. That means whatever progress there is now could soon grind to a halt.

The cause is twofold. First, voter exhaustion - even apathy - about the cause in an age of grinding cost-of-living pain. People may still tell pollsters they care about climate change, as surveys such as those by Our World in Data suggest. In practice, many seem to care but expect their governments to solve the affordability crisis first and foremost. Nothing feels more urgent than that.