Despite the growing awareness that climate change is real, as evidenced
by communities facing floods like this one in North Carolina’s Outer
Banks, the politics of climate action remain stuck. Credit: National
Park Service
Under Donald Trump’s renewed push to expand fossil fuel production —
including plans to ramp up oil and gas drilling and roll back climate
regulations — climate politics in the United States is entering a new
phase. Although Trump’s climate agenda is very much aligned with
outright denial, it has become less central in mainstream climate action
debate. Instead, opposition to policies such as carbon pricing,
emissions standards, and fossil fuel phaseouts remains strong.
At
the same time, the impacts of climate change are becoming harder to
ignore. When the devastating wildfires tore through Los Angeles in
January 2025, causing over $60 billion in destruction, millions of
Americans glimpsed what climate change looks like up close. Across the
country — as in many parts of the world — the signs are multiplying:
insurers abandoning coastal areas, deadly heatwaves breaking records,
and entire communities facing floods or drought. Understandably, the
proportion of Americans who believe global warming is happening has
increased over time, rising from about 57 percent in 2010 to over 70 percent in recent years, according to the Yale Climate Opinion Map of 2024.
Yet, despite this growing awareness, the politics of climate action remain stuck.
The old strategy of obstructionists — denying climate change outright — has largely lost credibility among scientists and the public at large. The scientific consensus on human-caused climate change is overwhelming, and its impacts are increasingly visible. But the departure of denial has not meant the arrival of decisive action.
Instead, something more subtle has taken its place: climate delay.
Scholars have increasingly warned about this shift. In 2020, William Lamb and colleagues identified a set of arguments that acknowledge climate change but still justify postponing meaningful action. These “discourses of climate delay” include familiar claims that action would hurt the economy, that technology will solve the problem later, or that responsibility lies with someone else.
Building on this framework, we conducted a nationwide survey of more than 1,500 Americans in 2024 to examine how widespread these narratives have become among the public — and how they might shape support for climate policy. Our findings show that large segments of the U.S. public hold beliefs that align with these narratives.
And they are everywhere: in political speeches, cable news debates, and everyday conversations.
Listen closely to climate debates today, and you’ll hear them constantly:
Yes, climate change is real — but why should we act if China doesn’t?
Yes, it’s real — but regulations will hurt ordinary people.
Yes, it’s real — but technology will solve it eventually.
These arguments sound reasonable. Many contain a kernel of truth. But together they add up to the same conclusion: not now.
Our research suggests that some of these narratives are particularly powerful in undermining support for climate policy. And it is not necessarily the most widespread ones that are most problematic.
The most influential narrative is what is often called “whataboutism,” which only about a third of our respondents subscribed to. This argument shifts responsibility for climate change elsewhere — usually toward other nations — while downplaying one’s own emissions. Americans hear it constantly: Why should the United States cut emissions if China is building coal plants? Unless other countries act, why should we?
In our survey, people who agreed with this line of argument were significantly less likely to support climate policies or demand government action.
It’s an argument that resonates politically because it taps into familiar themes of fairness and national competition. But it also misunderstands the nature of global cooperation. If every country waits for someone else to act first, no one moves.
‘No Sticks, Just Carrots’
Another powerful narrative insists that climate policy must rely only on voluntary action — what can be described as “no sticks, just carrots.” Subsidies for clean energy? Fine. But regulations, bans, or carbon taxes? Off the table.
This framing is politically convenient because it allows leaders to appear supportive of climate goals while avoiding the policies most likely to reduce emissions. But it also undermines support for the kinds of measures that actually work — from carbon pricing and emissions standards to restrictions on fossil fuels.
A third potent narrative exploits genuine concerns about fairness. Many people worry that climate policies will raise energy prices or hurt working-class communities. These concerns are understandable and occasionally real, as badly designed policies can indeed impose unfair costs — underscoring the importance of ensuring that the transition away from fossil fuels is fair and equitable.
But when these concerns are used to block climate action entirely or strategically deployed to obstruct it, then they become another form of delay. In our study, framing climate policy primarily as a threat to social justice significantly reduced support for government climate action.
Under Donald Trump’s first term, climate denial was still common. Today, it has been re-energized at the political level — with figures in the current administration engaging with climate denial networks and rolling back environmental protections. At the same time, familiar delay tactics remain central: acknowledging climate change while shifting responsibility to others or downplaying the need for urgent action. The result is not a replacement of denial with delay, but a more dangerous combination of the two — one that risks further entrenching resistance to meaningful climate policy. This helps explain why, even as most Americans now accept that climate change is real, many remain uncertain or divided over the policies needed to address it."
