Climate change is likely to exacerbate tensions both between and within countries, fostering nationalism and in-group solidarity rather than global cooperation, writes Alessio Terzi. While national climate mitigation efforts, driven by economic self-interest, may be less efficient than global coordination, technological innovations that address both climate change and resource scarcity could help mitigate these tensions.
This working paper draws on wide multidisciplinary literature, spanning climate science, economics, history, and evolutionary biology to argue that rather than uniting humanity against a common problem, climate change will progressively aggravate tensions between countries, and possibly also within them. In the face of climate-induced uncertainty, citizens will seek solidarity and protection from their in-group, which in the best-case scenario will be their nation-state. A strengthening of this bond in turn will imply a broad tilt towards nationalism, rather than internationalism.
Drawing the policy implications, climate mitigation carried out in the pursuit of national interest, including by means of green industrial policies with elements of economic nationalism, is surely less efficient with respect to a concerted global response, and yet is likely to prove the most viable course of action. Scientific and technological innovation that will be successful in rapidly reaching carbon neutrality while avoiding resource scarcity, feelings of uncertainty, and losses associated with climate change, will reduce the likelihood of the conflictual scenario prospected above.
Keywords: climate change, international political economy, economic nationalism, green industrial policy, climate policy
