On climate change, hope for the best but plan for the worst

In 2011, a London-based think tank caused a stir at the Pentagon with a different way to think about the risks of global climate change, proposing that countries prepare not for the most likely consequences of global warming but for the worst-case scenarios.

The world hasn’t listened. Despite increasingly dire warnings since the 1950s, governments, corporations, financial markets and consumers are nowhere near confronting the extraordinary threats climate change poses to social and economic security.

Instead, the fossil-energy industry and oil-igarchs have imposed their will on the policies of most governments. At last count, governments and markets are expected to subsidize fossil fuels with more than $8 trillion by 2030, which is a lot like addressing addiction by paying drug dealers to lower their prices. 

Under President Trump, the U.S. has become the poster child of this perverse practice — not only as the oil industry’s biggest booster, but also by suppressing the growth of clean energy. During his 2024 campaign, Trump was caught telling oil executives he would give them the keys to the kingdom if they gave him millions of dollars. 

And indeed, Trump has traded America’s energy security for the oil industry’s generous donations to his election campaign, inaugural festivities and construction of his White House ballroom. Trump dismisses that global warming itself has already emasculated the government’s ability to anticipate and mitigate warming’s dystopian risks, and he is trying to shut down state policies, too. 

As a result, the worst case today is considerably worse than it was in 2011, and it........

© The Hill