The geoeconomic turn in decarbonization

The rise of green industrial policy is transforming efforts to decarbonize the global economy and mitigate climate change.

The first three decades of climate policy centered on international cooperation on dividing up the costs of mitigation. In the new era of green industrial policy, geoeconomic competition for the benefits of decarbonization has emerged alongside international cooperation on emissions reductions. Governments invest in the manufacturing and deployment of clean technologies to advance economic development, energy security and emissions cuts.

Geoeconomic competition has the potential to accelerate global decarbonization by facilitating greater technology deployment, speeding up technology cost declines and, thus, lowering the barriers to climate action. However, it also creates major pitfalls by facilitating the rise of trade protectionism, creating international conflict, and reproducing economic divides between richer and poorer, yet growing, countries. It is thus uncertain how the geoeconomic turn will impact global decarbonization. Meanwhile, policymakers are asking fundamental questions about how to design industrial policy, manage politics, develop institutions, and deal with the trade-offs between economic, climate and security goals.

This Perspective article demonstrates the recent geoeconomic turn in decarbonization, lays out its implications for policymaking, identifies global spillovers and addresses research needs.