Climate Change and Nuclear War: Existential Threats on a “Split Screen”

Oct 26, 2021 | Shruti Samala
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In international relations today, we face two truly existential threats in climate change and in nuclear warAt this critical juncture —when “the risk of conflict between the United States and its Great Power rivals, China and Russia, is at the highest point since the end of the Cold War”—the two crises must be understood as interconnected.

In theory, great powers can compartmentalize climate change from long standing geopolitical pressures in order to jointly curb global carbon emissions. But China and the United States espouse opposing perspectives on climate diplomacy. China views climate change mitigation through a transactional diplomacy lens—that is, international collaboration to decarbonize the economy is not dissevered from traditional geostrategic dynamics but rather a means to simultaneously pursue parochial state goals. In contrast, the U.S. position is that climate change transcends national interests, and should not be brandished as a “geopolitical weapon” or ideological tool.