In February 2025, the Political Studies Association (PSA) Environment Group and the PSA Elections, Public Opinion and Parties Group (EPOP) co-organised a one-day academic workshop on elections and climate change. The final panel was titled ‘Reasons to be Cheerful’. In this first of a series of guest posts, panellist Dr Katharina Richter shares her reflections on the theme.
In early 2025, things are looking bad for people and planet. The re-election of Donald Trump struck fear into the hearts of climate activists and policy wonks alike, and with good reason. Upon taking office, the administration promptly purged any mention of climate change from federal websites. The Trump administration is also trying to break up NOOA, firing staff at the National Weather Service which could drastically remove its ability to issue timely weather warnings. Among a flurry of Executive Orders, “Unleashing American Energy” promises to increase (oil and gas) exploration and cutting the Electric Vehicle mandate. All federal agency programmes and financing are now required to align with the EO. Consequently, all funding disbursement under the $1.2tn Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (2021) and the $369bn Inflation Reduction Act (2022) has been halted. Both channel billions of dollars into clean energy, transport and climate projects. This is, undoubtedly, bad news.
However, while things look bad on the surface (and often beyond), not everything is lost. For one, oil production in the US already hit a high in 2024, and prospects for ramping up conventional oil production further are unclear. Furthermore, by autumn 2024, $61 billion in IRA grants had already been awarded to more than 6,100 projects, leaving just roughly 35% of all direct financing in the pot. Moreover, by far the largest proportion of IRA spending is made up of tax credits, and those are not touched by the EO. Indeed, Trump cannot reform these tax credits nor repeal the act altogether without congressional approval. And given that IRA funding has disproportionately benefited red states in terms of green jobs and energy infrastructure, we can expect some GOP in-fighting over this issue.
Of course, the danger of this type of parochial politics is to entrench patterns of dispossession and violent extractivism. Wind turbines, battery factories, EVs, solar panels and other green energy technologies require a wider range of minerals and critical raw materials compared to fossil fuels. Geopolitical competition amid resource security concerns is driving green extractivism in global and regional peripheries. In that context, climate activists are asking what is being produced with these resources, and for whom. Redistributive, postgrowth approaches to climate justice are key to easing material pressures on these (human and non-human) communities.
With regard to international climate policy, the United States will formally exit the Paris Agreement in early 2026, amid general distrust in the UNFCCC process. Despite all shortcomings of COP29, negotiators agreed on a climate finance deal that requires all actors to provide at least $1.3 trillion of climate finance per year by 2035 to developing countries. Of that, developed countries will mobilise $300bn per year by 2035, though critics have pointed out the lack of concessionary finance and inflation adjustment. Brazil’s COP30 organisers are now tasked with preparing a clear roadmap on how to get there. This will be, of course, much harder without the US. The US provides $11bn per year in bilateral and multilateral climate fund contributions, which will likely be cut under Trump. Nevertheless, this figure accounts to a mere 12% of all developed countries’ climate financing. Multilateral Development Banks often provide key climate finance, and while the US is often a very large shareholder, the new annual goal includes MDB financing, which should continue even after the US’s formal exit from the Paris Agreement.
The wider point about hope, however, is that it is not something we ‘have’ or ‘don’t have’. Rather than blindly – and passively – waiting for something good to happen in the climate space, we need to acknowledge the things that are happening, both good and bad, and ask ourselves what we can do about those. Hope needs to be manifested. When we engage in local politics, national campaigns, financially or logistically support climate struggles, make changes to our own lives, or use our talents in support of climate action in whatever way we can, there will be reasons for hope.
Bio: Katharina Richter is Lecturer in Climate Change, Politics and Society at the University of Bristol. She is an expert in environmental politics, and investigates the socio-political aspects of climate change at the intersection of degrowth, decolonisation and development.
