Techno-Nationalism

Chapter 20Climate Change and Geopolitics

Most of the world’s nations have pledged to do their share in decarbonising the global economy by 2050, in accordance with the Paris Agreement. This voluntary forum aims to hold global warming to 1.5° Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

That goal has prompted efforts to transition from fossil fuels to sustainable energy sources such as wind, solar and hydrogen power, otherwise known as ‘cleantech’. Advances in thermonuclear and plasma physics have recently opened the door to fusion energy, which may eventually allow us to replicate the power of the Sun inside fusion reactors. This could yield practically limitless clean energy—although this is probably decades away, if not more.

By one estimate, meeting the goal of the Paris Agreement will require governments and businesses to lay out at least US$4 trillion of annual spending on the development and deployment of cleantech by the year 2030.¹

But the road to a carbon-neutral world must pass through a quagmire of economic nationalism and a new kind of climate-driven geopolitics. This climate realpolitik will complicate how and where cleantech is developed, produced and traded.

The drive to decarbonise the global economy has animated the U.S.–China great-power competition in two ways.

First, China’s dominance of cleantech supply chains in solar and wind power, as well as lithium-ion batteries, has given Beijing the power to leverage these supply chains through export controls and as tools ...