We cannot afford to make enemies now
With Trump's return to the White House, the climate movement needs the biggest possible tent.
Words came to me very slowly in the days following the 2024 election, one that did not go the way that I nor millions (billions?) of other people had hoped. The only thing that feels certain is that lots of uncertainty and raised hackles lie ahead, and that the long and twisty road toward getting a handle on the climate crisis has grown longer and twistier.
That said, history is still on our side. Setbacks are nothing new in our line of work. The energy and climate transition is more bipartisan than it appears and draws in unlikely bedfellows that make it more paradoxical and contradictory than virtually any other major wedge issue. The Inflation Reduction Act in particular is a political football that the right loves to bash but is too lucrative to red states to mothball entirely.
The political posturing inherent in waging war over climate policy means that a Trump 2.0 administration could pick fights with, say, California over its environmental regulations. Such scuffles will likely fill legal dockets for years to come. Yet again, gridlock will be the status quo. Looking ahead, a future Democratic administration could undo all the undoings.
I am also reminded that it has never been a particularly good bet to put too much stock in the things that Donald Trump says on the campaign trail. So much of it is simply wholly divorced from facts. Take his his tariff and mass deportation plans, which would be economically ruinous. While his administration may attempt some parts of his most extreme agenda, unfortunately, there’s a little thing called “reality” that not even the president of the United States can ignore forever.
On climate, this reality involves cold hard economic calculations that increasingly favor clean energy and climate-friendly technologies. Progress will certainly not be as rapid as it would be otherwise, but the energy transition and climate mitigation more broadly are not going to ground to a halt or shift into reverse.
At the same time, the established energy order is also not going to disappear overnight. The climate movement would be wise to consider the ways to effect change that nudge the status quo in a greener direction and are much more attainable given the political reality. I personally work with people in the oil and gas industry who are committed to making a difference in their space. They recognize that oil and gas will continue to play a major role in the global economy and approach their task with good intentions. On a fundamental level, the business model of oil and gas companies remains incompatible with tackling climate change—oil and gas will eventually vanish from the energy system—but it is not something that climate advocates can simply wish away.
Having collaborated with fossil-fuel interests for several years now as part of my work with Methane Guiding Principles, I maintain hope that cooperation is possible even with perceived “enemies” of the transition. Even the notion of the climate movement having an “enemy” feels short-sighted and counterproductive. I caveat this with the full understanding that there are plenty of powerful people who deny the existence of climate change, or downplay its urgency, simply as a cynical means of scoring political points. They manipulate everyday folks—those who have the most to lose from an unstable climate—into believing junk science or outright lies. These people actively harm the planet and the people they claim to represent.
But their existence makes it all the more important for climate advocates to work with well-meaning incumbents where possible, rather than imposing purity tests on all activities within the climate umbrella. Climate cannot afford to become a wholly reactionary agenda that simply shuts itself out of the halls of power and whines within an ever-narrower echo chamber. Failure need not spell defeat. We need an inclusive, magnanimous movement that meets people halfway and seeks to understand those with different needs, backgrounds, and priorities. This is the only way that the climate movement can not only survive Trump 2.0, but come back stronger on the other side.