In a significant shift of global focus, the climate change movement is being pushed to the sidelines of international policy-making. Once described as an existential threat capable of destroying life on Earth, the issue is now taking a back seat to more immediate crises.
Geopolitical Realities Overshadow Long-Term Forecasts
The world is grappling with a new global order where tangible threats are taking precedence. The growing risks of wars, dictatorships, economic instability, and national revolutions are now viewed as more pressing concerns than the hypothetical risks associated with temperature rises forecast for decades in the future. This realignment marks a dramatic change for a cause that dominated the past half-century.
A pivotal moment in this shift occurred recently when U.S. President Donald Trump decided to withdraw the United States from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This move, announced in January 2026, significantly weakened the international framework for climate alarmism and cooperative action.
Self-Inflicted Wounds: How Alarmism Backfired
According to analysis, the environmental movement itself bears considerable responsibility for the declining prominence of climate issues. Writing from a British perspective, noted environmental academic Christian Dunn argued in a column for The Telegraph that the movement's strategy has failed.
Dunn suggests that public disengagement is often wrongly blamed on denial or misinformation. "A harder truth is that those of us who work on environmental issues have helped to create the problem ourselves," he wrote. The relentless focus on catastrophe and demands for personal sacrifice have alienated large sections of the public.
"For years, we have led with catastrophe," Dunn explained. "We have told people that saving the planet means giving things up: cheaper food, warm homes, family holidays abroad, cars, and choice. We have moralized, shamed, fined, taxed and scolded. And then we have acted surprised when large sections of the public decided they wanted no part of it."
Catastrophic Rhetoric from the Top
This trend of fear-mongering is not limited to activists but extends to the highest levels of global leadership. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has been a leading voice of climate catastrophism.
In one notable speech, Guterres declared, "We are on a highway to climate hell, with our foot still on the accelerator." In another, he offered a stark metaphor: "We are like the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs; we're having an outsized impact. In the case of climate, we are not the dinosaurs. We are the meteor. We are not only in danger. We are the danger."
Former Bank of England Governor and UN climate finance envoy Mark Carney also contributed to this narrative. In his 2021 book Value(s): Building a Better World for All, he warned of a "vicious cycle" of climate impacts damaging property and forcing migration. He later praised activist Greta Thunberg and her declaration that "We are in the beginning of mass extinction."
The culmination of these trends suggests a profound change in the global agenda. As immediate geopolitical and economic fires demand attention, the long-burning issue of climate change, once billed as an unparalleled emergency, is being relegated to a lower priority on the world stage.
