¹ On Pruit, see, for example, Alex Guillen and Emily Holden, ‘What EPA chief Scott Pruitt promised – and what he’s done’, Politico (19 November 2017), available at: {chiefpolitico.com/interactives/2017/scott-pruitt-promises/}; on Perry: Ian Johnston, ‘US Energy Secretary Rick Perry told he lacks “fundamental understanding” of climate science’, The Independent (23 June 2017), available at: {http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/us-energy-secretary-rick-perry-climate-change-american-meteorological-society-a7804041.html}; on Bridenstine: Dana Nuccitelli, ‘We have every reason to fear Trump’s pick to head NASA’, The Guardian (6 November 2017), available at: {https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/nov/06/we-have-every-reason-to-fear-trumps-pick-to-head-nasa}; and on Hartnett White: Michael Biesecker, ‘“I am not a scientist”: President Trump’s pick for environmental advisor is a climate change sceptic’, Time (9 November 2017), available at: {http://time.com/5018105/kathleen-hartnett-white-donald-trump-environment/}. Hartnett White’s nomination was withdrawn after being sent back by the Senate. Scott Pruit resigned from the EPA in July 2018 in the wake of multiple ethics scandals.

² White House, ‘The President’s Climate Action Plan’ (June 2013), available at: {https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/image/president27sclimateactionplan.pdf}; rescinded by White House, ‘Presidential Executive Order on Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth’ (28 March 2017), available at: {https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/presidential-executive-order-promoting-energy-independence-economic-growth/}.

³ Lisa Friedman and Brad Plumer, ‘EPA announces repeal of major Obama-era carbon emissions rule’, New York Times (9 October 2017), available at: {https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/09/climate/clean-power-plan.html}; Sam Fleming and Ed Crooks, ‘Trump moves to scrap Obama rules on coal-fired power’, Financial Times (9 October 2017), available at: {https://www.ft.com/content/e9f5b034-ad13-11e7-aab9-abaa44b1e130}.

⁴ Ed Crooks, ‘US delivers electric shock with coal and nuclear subsidy plan’, Financial Times (1 October 2017), available at: {https://www.ft.com/content/a5c7c658-a6bb-11e7-ab55-27219df83c97}.

⁵ Clifford Krauss, ‘US, in reversal, issues permit for Keystone oil pipeline’, New York Times (24 March 2017), available at: {https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/24/business/energy-environment/keystone-oil-pipeline.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FKeystone%20XL&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=10&pgtype= collection}.

⁶ Sabrina Shankman, ‘Congress opens Arctic Wildlife Refuge to drilling, but do companies want in?’, Inside Climate News (22 December 2017), available at: {https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20122017/arctic-national-wildlife-refuge-open-drilling-oil-tax-bill-congress-trump}; Oliver Milman, ‘Trump administration plans to allow oil and gas drilling off nearly all US coast’, The Guardian (4 January 2018), available at: {https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jan/04/trump-administration-plans-to-allow-oil-and-gas-drilling-off-nearly-all-us-coast}.

⁷ Coral Davenport, ‘Trump administration reveals its plan to relax car pollution rules’, New York Times (2 August 2018), available at: {https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/02/climate/trump-auto-emissions-california.html}.

⁸ Oliver Milman, ‘Trump budget would gut EPA programs tackling climate change and pollution’, The Guardian (16 March 2017), available at: {https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/16/trump-budget-cuts-climate-change-clean-up-programs-epa}; Karl Mathiesen, ‘Trump budget: US to stop funding UN climate process’, Climate Home News (16 March 2017), available at: {http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/03/16/trump-budget-us-stop-funding-un-climate-process/}; Brenda Ekwurzel, ‘Donald Trump ends IPCC funding and “abandons global science leadership”’, The Ecologist (17 August 2017), available at: {https://theecologist.org/2017/aug/17/donald-trump-ends-ipcc-funding-and-abandons-global-science-leadership}.

⁹ White House Office of the Press Secretary, ‘Statement by President Trump on the Paris Climate Accord’ (1 June 2017), available at: {https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/06/01/statement-president-trump-paris-climate-accord}. The full list of Paris agreement signatories is available at: {http://unfccc.int/paris_agreement/items/9444.php}.

¹⁰ The White House, National Security Strategy of the United States of America (December 2017), available at: {https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/NSS-Final-12-18-2017-0905.pdf}. For comparison, the 2015 NSS is available at: {http://nssarchive.us/national-security-strategy-2015/}.

¹¹ On the Trump administration’s racialised response to Maria and its historical context see, for example, Frances Negrón-Muntaner, ‘The crisis in Puerto Rico is a racial issue: Here’s why’, The Root (10 October 2017), available at: {http://www.theroot.com/the-crisis-in-puerto-rico-is-a-racial-issue-here-s-why-1819380372}; and Pedro Caban, ‘Catastrophe and colonialism’, Jacobin Magazine (12 December 2017), available at: {https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/12/puerto-rico-hurricane-maria-trump-us-status-history}. On the electricity crisis see, for example, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, ‘Puerto Rico: Human Rights Concerns Mount in Absence of Adequate Emergency Response’ (30 October 2017), available at: {http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=22326&LangID=E}; and on the death toll from Maria, Frances Robles et al., ‘Official death toll from Maria: 64. Actual deaths may be 1,052’, New York Times (9 December 2017), available at: {https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/08/us/puerto-rico-hurricane-maria-death-toll.html}; and Santos-Lozada, Alexis, ‘In Puerto Rico, counting deaths and making deaths count’, Health Affairs, 37:4 (2018), pp. 520–522 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

¹² See, for example, Mary Robinson’s statement in ‘The Elders Condemn US for Quitting Paris Climate Agreement’, available at: {https://theelders.org/article/elders-condemn-us-quitting-paris-climate-agreement-no-one-country-can-dismantle-it}.

¹³ Explicitly or implicitly liberal institutionalist readings include Aldy, Joseph, ‘Real world headwinds for Trump climate change policy’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 73:6 (2017), pp. 376–381 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bomberg, Elizabeth, ‘Environmental politics in the Trump era: an early assessment’, Environmental Politics, 26:5 (2017), pp. 956–963 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Haas, Peter, ‘Parxit, the United States and the world’, Chinese Journal of Population Resources and Environment, 15:3 (2017), pp. 186–188 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jonathan Pickering et al., ‘The impact of the US retreat from the Paris agreement: Kyoto revisited?’, Climate Policy, 18:7 (2018), pp. 818–27; and Urpelainen, Johannes and van de Graaf, Thijs, ‘United States non-cooperation and the Paris agreement’, Climate Policy (2017)Google Scholar; while Betsill, Michele, ‘Trump’s Paris withdrawal and the reconfiguration of global climate change governance’, Chinese Journal of Population Resources and Environment, 15:3 (2017), pp. 189–191 CrossRefGoogle Scholar draws upon a combination of institutionalist and constructivist premises. Key works on which these commentaries draw include Ostrom, Elinor, ‘Polycentric systems for coping with collective action and global environmental change’, Global Environmental Change, 20:4 (2010), pp. 550–557 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Keohane, Robert and Victor, David, ‘The regime complex for climate change’, Perspectives on Politics, 9:1 (2011), pp. 7–23 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Bulkeley, Harriet et al., Transnational Climate Change Governance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁴ On political ecology see, for example, Peluso, Nancy and Watts, Michael (eds), Violent Environments (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001)Google Scholar; Robbins, Paul, Political Ecology: A Critical Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell, 2011)Google Scholar; and Peet, Richard et al. (eds), Global Political Ecology (London: Routledge, 2011)Google Scholar.

¹⁵ On the former see, for example, from very different perspectives, Nixon, Rob, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011); and Moore, Jason, Capitalism and the Web of Life: Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital (London: Verso, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and in relation to climate change specifically, see Timmons Roberts, J. and Parks, Bradley C., A Climate of Injustice: Global Inequality, North-South Politics, and Climate Policy (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007)Google Scholar; and Ciplet, David et al., Power in a Warming World: The New Global Politics of Climate Change and the Remaking of Environmental Inequality (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the latter, I draw specifically on those strands of historical materialist IR that insist, in quasi-realist fashion, that geopolitical contestation and ‘the international’ have not been displaced by predominantly ‘transnational’ or ‘global’ forms of politics: see, for example, Callinicos, Alex, ‘Marxism and global governance’, in David Held and Anthony McGrew (eds), Governing Globalization: Power, Authority and Global Governance (Cambridge: Polity, 2002), pp. 249–266 Google Scholar; and Rosenberg, Justin, ‘Globalization theory: a post mortem’, International Politics, 42:1 (2005), pp. 2–74 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁶ On the former, see especially Anievas, Alexander et al., Race and Racism in International Relations: Confronting the Global Colour Line (London: Routledge, 2015)Google Scholar.

¹⁷ See especially Rosenberg, Justin, ‘International Relations in the prison of political science’, International Relations, 30:2 (2016), pp. 127–153 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and, classically, Gourevitch, Peter, ‘The second image reversed: the international sources of domestic politics’, International Organization, 32:4 (1978), pp. 881–912 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁸ See especially Mitchell, Timothy, Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil (London: Verso, 2011)Google Scholar; and Malm, Andreas, Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming (London: Verso, 2016)Google Scholar.

¹⁹ See, for example, in relation to climate Methmann, Chris Paul, ‘“Climate protection” as empty signifier: a discourse theoretical perspective on climate mainstreaming in world politics’, Millennium, 39:2 (2010), pp. 345–372 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and in relation to Weber, Trump Cynthia, ‘The Trump presidency, episode 1: Simulating sovereignty’, Theory and Event, 20:1 (2017), pp. 132–142 Google Scholar.

²⁰ See Trump’s 15 December 2013 tweet available at: {https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/412162068989874176?lang=en}; and for a full record of his climate change denialist tweets, Dylan Matthews, ‘Donald Trump has tweeted climate change scepticism 115 times: Here’s all of it’, Vox (1 June 2017), available at: {https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/6/1/15726472/trump-tweets-global-warming-paris-climate-agreement}.

²¹ John Broder, ‘“Cap and trade” loses its standing as energy policy of choice’, New York Times (25 March 2010), available at: {http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/science/earth/26climate.html}.

²² Adam Liptak and Coral Davenport, ‘Supreme court deals blow to Obama’s efforts to regulate coal emissions’, New York Times (9 February 2016), available at: {https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/10/us/politics/supreme-court-blocks-obama-epa-coal-emissions-regulations.html?smid=pl-share}.

²³ For discussion of this contested issue, see, for example, Josh Busby, ‘The Paris agreement: When is a treaty not a treaty?’, Global Policy blog (26 April 2016), available at: {http://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/26/04/2016/paris-agreement-when-treaty-not-treaty}; Sam Mulopulos, ‘Why the Paris agreement is a treaty’, Huffington Post (5 November 2016), available at: {https://www.huffingtonpost.com/young-professionals-in-foreign-policy/why-the-paris-climate-agr_b_9914606.html}; Eugene Kontorovich, ‘The US can’t quit the Paris agreement, because it never actually joined’, The Washington Post (1 July 2017), available at: {https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/06/01/the-u-s-cant-quit-the-paris-climate-agreement-because-it-never-actually-joined/?utm_term=.23e18c0f64e3}.

²⁴ Brad Plumer, ‘Rick Perry’s plan to rescue struggling coal and nuclear plants is rejected’, New York Times (8 January 2018), available at: {https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/08/climate/trump-coal-nuclear.html}.

²⁵ Mark Hand, ‘Climate, environmental programs left mostly untouched in budget deal’, Think Progress (1 May 2017), available at: {https://thinkprogress.org/climate-environmental-programs-left-mostly-untouched-in-budget-deal-3742f7bad9c5/}.

²⁶ Georgina Gustin, ‘Tax overhaul preserves critical credits for wind, solar and electric vehicles’, Inside Climate News (22 December 2017), available at: {https://insideclimatenews.org/news/18122017/tax-bill-vote-renewable-credits-solar-wind-clean-energy-jobs-evs-investment-anwr}.

²⁷ See, for example, Andrew Holland, ‘Congress and President Affirm Climate Change Threatens Security – Asks for Military to Prepare’, American Security Project (13 November 2017), available at: {https://www.americansecurityproject.org/congress-climate-security/}. For critical readings of the securitisation of climate change see, for example, Hartmann, Betsy, ‘Rethinking climate refugees and climate conflict: Rhetoric, reality and the politics of policy discourse’, Journal of International Development, 22:2 (2010), pp. 233–246 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Selby, Jan and Hoffmann, Clemens, ‘Rethinking climate change, conflict and security’, Geopolitics, 19:4 (2014), pp. 747–756 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁸ See, for example, Rabe, Barry, ‘States on steroids: the intergovernmental odyssey of American climate policy’, Review of Policy Research, 25:2 (2008), pp. 105–128 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lutsey, Nicholas and Sperling, Daniel, ‘America’s bottom-up climate change mitigation policy’, Energy Policy, 36:2 (2008), pp. 673–685 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lee, Taedong and Koski, Chris, ‘Multilevel governance and urban climate change mitigation’, Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 33:6 (2015), pp. 1501–1517 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁹ Bedsworth, Louise and Hanak, Ellen, ‘Climate policy at the local level: Insights from California’, Global Environmental Change, 23:3 (2013), pp. 664–677 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘The world is watching as California steps up – again – on climate change’, Washington Post (25 September 2016), available at: {https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-world-is-watching-as-california-steps-up--again--on-climate-change/2016/09/25/f5cae480-76d0-11e6-8149-b8d05321db62_story.html?utm_term=.02daffb202ba}; Melanie Mason and Chris Megerian, ‘California legislature extends state’s cap-and-trade program in rare bipartisan effort to address climate change’, Los Angeles Times (17 July 2017), available at: {http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-california-climate-change-vote-republicans-20170717-story.html}.

³⁰ Jorge Amigo, ‘Renewable Energy in Oil-Intensive Jurisdictions: A Comparative Study of Wind Energy Growth in Texas and Alberta’ (MA thesis, University of British Columbia, 2011).

³¹ Lutsey and Sperling, ‘America’s bottom-up climate change mitigation policy’, pp. 675, 683; Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, ‘Greenhouse Gas Emissions Targets’, available at: {https://www.c2es.org/document/greenhouse-gas-emissions-targets/}. More broadly on the unevenness of US state climate policies, see Harrison, Kathryn, ‘Federalism and climate policy innovation: a critical reassessment’, Canadian Public Policy, 39:S2 (2013), pp. S95–S108 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³² Davenport, ‘Trump administration reveals its plan to relax car pollution rules’; Hiroko Tabuchi, ‘California administration strikes back against the Trump administration’s auto pollution rollback’, New York Times (7 August 2018), available at: {https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/07/climate/california-auto-emissions-trump.html}.

³³ On the US Climate Alliance see: {https://www.usclimatealliance.org/}; and on We Are Still In, available at: {https://www.wearestillin.com/about}. See also Bloomberg Philanthropies, America’s Pledge, Phase 1 Report: States, Cities, and Businesses in the United States Are Stepping Up on Climate Action (November 2017), available at: {https://www.americaspledgeonclimate.com/}; New Climate Institute and Climate Group, States, Cities and Businesses Leading the Way: A First Look at Decentralized Climate Commitments in the US (September 2017), available at: {https://newclimate.org/2017/09/13/states-cities-and-businesses-leading-the-way-a-first-look-at-decentralized-climate-commitments-in-the-us/}; the Ready for 100 initiative, available at: {https://www.sierraclub.org/ready-for-100/commitments}.

³⁴ Kemp, Luke, ‘US-proofing the Paris climate agreement’, Climate Policy, 17:1 (2016), pp. 86–101 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁵ UNFCCC, Adoption of the Paris Agreement, Report No. FCCC/CP/2015/L.9/Rev.1 (12 December 2015), Annex, Art. 2, para. 1(a), available at: {http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2015/cop21/eng/l09r01.pdf}. While the 1.5 °C and ‘well below’ 2 °C objectives were Paris innovations, the goal of limiting warming to 2 °C was not: see Randalls, Samuel, ‘History of the 2 °C climate target’, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 1:4 (2010), pp. 598–605 Google Scholar.

³⁶ UNFCCC, Adoption of the Paris Agreement, Annex, Arts 3–4. On the ratchet mechanism see, for example, Sophie Yeo, ‘Timeline: the Paris agreement’s “ratchet mechanism”’, Carbon Brief (19 January 2016), available at: {https://www.carbonbrief.org/timeline-the-paris-agreements-ratchet-mechanism}.

³⁷ Keohane, Robert and Victor, David, ‘Cooperation and discord in global climate policy’, Nature Climate Change, 6 (2016), pp. 570–575 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁸ Joshua Busby, ‘Trump says goodbye to the Paris climate agreement: Here’s what that means’, The Washington Post (1 June 2017), available at: {https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/06/01/trump-says-goodbye-to-the-paris-climate-agreement-heres-what-that-means/?utm_term=.681f0e49620f}.

³⁹ See, for example, J. G. J. Olivier et al., Trends in Global CO ₂ and Total Greenhouse Gas Emissions: 2017 Report (The Hague: PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, 2017), available at: {http://www.pbl.nl/en/publications/trends-in-global-co2-and-total-greenhouse-gas-emissions-2017-report}; International Energy Agency, Global Energy and CO2 Status Report 2017 (Paris: IEA, 2018), available at: {https://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/GECO2017.pdf}.

⁴⁰ Rogelj, Joeri et al., ‘Paris agreement climate proposals need a boost to keep warming well below 2 °C’, Nature, 534 (2016), p. 631 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rogelj, et al., ‘Differences between carbon budget estimates unravelled’, Nature Climate Change, 6 (2016), pp. 245–252 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴¹ Rogelj et al., ‘Paris agreement climate proposals need a boost’, p. 632.

⁴² Ibid., p. 635; also IPCC, Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C, Summary for Policymakers, first order draft, p. 4, available at: {https://www.scribd.com/document/371415321/IPCC-special-report-on-1-5C-draft-summary-for-policymakers?secret_password=xlexc6JWYfplQn1LVaDe#fullscreen&from_embed}. At the time of writing, this draft finding was still subject to review.

⁴³ Ibid., p. 636.

⁴⁴ IPCC, Climate Change 2014, Summary for Policymakers, p. 10, available at: {https://www.co2.earth/} provides a useful tracking of atmospheric CO₂ concentrations.

⁴⁵ Rogelj et al., ‘Paris agreement climate proposals need a boost’; Climate Action Tracker, ‘Effect of Current Pledges and Policies on Global Temperature’, available at: {http://climateactiontracker.org/global.html}.

⁴⁶ Committee on Climate Change, An Independent Assessment of the UK’s Clean Growth Strategy: From Ambition to Action (January 2018), available at: {https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/independent-assessment-uks-clean-growth-strategy-ambition-action/}; Jocelyn Timperley, ‘“Worrying trend” in UK emissions cuts beyond power and waste, says CCC’, Carbon Brief (28 June 2018), available at: https://www.carbonbrief.org/worrying-trend-uk-emission-cuts-beyond-power-waste-says-ccc.

⁴⁷ Ibid., p. 24.

⁴⁸ See, for example, Kerstine Appunn, ‘Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions and climate targets’, Clean Energy Wire (1 February 2018), available at: {https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-greenhouse-gas-emissions-and-climate-targets}; Paul Hockenos, ‘Germany is a coal-burning, gas-guzzling climate change hypocrite’, Foreign Policy (13 November 2017), available at: {http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/11/13/germany-is-a-coal-burning-gas-guzzling-climate-change-hypocrite/}; Arthur Wyns, ‘German grand coalition agrees on climate and energy policy’, Climate Tracker (6 February 2018), available at: {http://climatetracker.org/german-grand-coalition-agrees-climate-energy-policy/}.

⁴⁹ European Environment Agency, ‘Greenhouse Gas Emissions across EU Drop Slightly in 2016’ (7 November 2017), available at: {https://www.eea.europa.eu/highlights/greenhouse-gas-emissions-across-eu}.

⁵⁰ ‘Japan 2017’, Climate Action Tracker (6 November 2017), available at: {http://climateactiontracker.org/countries/japan.html}.

⁵¹ Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, ‘US Emissions’, available at: {https://www.c2es.org/content/u-s-emissions/}; US Environmental Protection Agency, Inventory of US Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks 1990–2015 (EPA, 2017), available at: {https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/inventory-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions-and-sinks-1990-2015 Google Scholar};

‘USA 2017’, Climate Action Tracker (6 November 2017), available at: {http://climateactiontracker.org/countries/usa.html}.

⁵² ‘China 2017’, Climate Action Tracker (6 November 2017), available at: {http://climateactiontracker.org/countries/china.html}.

⁵³ See, for example, Fergus Green, ‘Why the ratchet mechanism is (almost) everything in Paris’, Inside Story (11 December 2015), available at: {http://insidestory.org.au/why-the-ratchet-mechanism-is-almost-everything-in-paris/}.

⁵⁴ See, for example, Selby, Jan, ‘The political economy of peace processes’, in Michael Pugh et al. (eds.), Whose Peace? Critical Perspectives on the Political Economy of Peacebuilding (London: Palgrave, 2008), pp. 11–29 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁵ Sara Stefanini and Nicholas Vinocur, ‘Macron’s moment to make the planet great again’, Politico (12 November 2017), available at: {https://www.politico.eu/article/emmanuel-macron-moment-to-make-the-planet-great-again-climate-change-paris-one-planet-summit/}; Markus Wacket, ‘France and UK vow to make up for Trump’s withdrawal of climate change funding’, Independent (15 November 2017), available at: {http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/trump-climate-change-funding-france-uk-vow-make-up-money-paris-agreement-a8057546.html}; Lorraine Chow, ‘France approves world’s first ban on fracking and oil production’, EcoWatch (20 December 2017), available at: {https://www.ecowatch.com/france-fracking-ban-2518885658.html?utm_source=CR-TW&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=ClimateReality}; Angelique Chrisafis and Adam Vaughan, ‘France to ban sales of petrol and diesel cars by 2040’, The Guardian (6 July 2017), available at: {https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jul/06/france-ban-petrol-diesel-cars-2040-emmanuel-macron-volvo}.

⁵⁶ See for example, Ciplet et al., Power in a Warming World, ch. 3.

⁵⁷ UNFCCC, Copenhagen Accord, Report No. FCCC/CP/2009/11/Add.1 (18 December 2009), Art. 8, available at: {https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2009/cop15/eng/11a01.pdf}.

⁵⁸ UNFCCC, Adoption of the Paris Agreement, Art. 115.

⁵⁹ Roadmap to US $100 Billion (24 October 2016), available at: {https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/climate-finance-roadmap-to-us100-billion}. This report is lead produced by the UK and Australian governments, with input from many others. On the lack of agreement and concerns, see especially J. Timmons Roberts and Romain Weikmans, ‘Roadmap to where? Is the “$100 billion by 2020” pledge from Copenhagen still realistic?’, Brookings Institute blog (20 October 2016), available at: {https://www.brookings.edu/blog/planetpolicy/2016/10/20/roadmap-to-where-is-the-100-billion-by-2020-pledge-from-copenhagen-still-realistic/}; and Roberts, J. Timmons and Weikmans, Romain, ‘Postface: fragmentation, failing trust and enduring tensions over what counts as climate finance’, International Environmental Agreements, 17:1 (2017), pp. 129–137 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶⁰ Roberts and Weikmans, ‘Postface’, p. 130.

⁶¹ GCF, ‘Report on Post-Approval Status of Approved Funding Proposals’, Document GCF/B.18/08 (14 September 2017), p. 5, available at: {https://www.greenclimate.fund/documents/20182/820027/GCF_B.18_08_-_Report_on_post-approval_status_of_approved_funding_proposals.pdf/100b60e4-b5ce-42a5-ba48-063464aceb2b}.

⁶² Urpelainen and van de Graaf, ‘United States non-cooperation and the Paris agreement’, pp. 5–6.

⁶³ Wacket, ‘France and UK vow to make up for Trump’s withdrawal of climate change funding’; Megan Darby, ‘Macron summit touts green finance progress – despite Trump’, Climate Home News (13 December 2017), available at: {http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/12/13/macron-summit-touts-green-finance-progress-despite-trump/}.

⁶⁴ Dunlap, Riley and McCright, Aaron, ‘A widening gap: Republican and Democratic views on climate change’, Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, 50:5 (2008), pp. 26–35 Google Scholar; Dunlap, Riley et al., ‘The political divide on climate change: partisan polarization widens in the US’, Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, 58:5 (2016), pp. 4–23 Google Scholar.

⁶⁵ Dunlap et al., ‘The political divide on climate change’, p. 15.

⁶⁶ Hamilton, Lawrence and Saito, Kei, ‘A four-party view of US environmental concern’, Environmental Politics, 24:2 (2015), pp. 212–227 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶⁷ McCright, Aaron and Dunlap, Riley, ‘Cool dudes: the denial of climate change among conservative white males in the United States’, Global Environmental Change, 21 (2011), pp. 1163–1172 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶⁸ Ibid., p. 1168.

⁶⁹ Andrew Prokop, ‘Don’t just blame Trump for quitting the Paris deal – blame the Republican Party’, Vox (1 June 2017), available at: {https://www.vox.com/2017/6/1/15726726/trump-paris-climate-agreement-republicans}.

⁷⁰ Tim McDonnell, ‘Scientists: Ted Cruz’s climate theories are a “load of claptrap”’, Mother Jones (18 March 2015), available at: {http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/03/ted-cruz-seth-myers-climate-change/#}; Samantha Page, ‘Ted Cruz: “Climate change is not science: It’s religion”’, Think Progress (30 October 2015), available at: {https://thinkprogress.org/ted-cruz-climate-change-is-not-science-its-religion-70987f13959c/}; Rebecca Leber, ‘Marco Rubio is (now) the most dangerous GOP candidate on climate’, New Republic (7 October 2015), available at: {https://newrepublic.com/article/123051/marco-rubio-now-most-dangerous-gop-candidate-climate}. For an overview of positions see, for example, Emma Foehringer Merchant, ‘How the 2016 presidential candidates view climate change’, New Republic (30 November 2015), available at: {https://newrepublic.com/article/124381/2016-presidential-candidates-view-climate-change}.

⁷¹ Phil McKenna, ‘GOP and democratic platforms highlight stark differences on energy and climate’, Inside Climate News (26 July 2016), available at: {https://insideclimatenews.org/news/26072016/democrat-republican-party-platforms-energy-climate-change-hillary-clinton-donald-trump; the document is available at: {https://www.gop.com/the-2016-republican-party-platform/}.

⁷² Julia Jacobo, ‘Reactions swift after Trump’s withdrawal from Paris climate accord’, ABC News (1 June 2017), available at: {http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/public-figures-react-trumps-decision-withdraw-paris/story?id=47767113}. On the pre-decision lobbying, see, for example, Tom McCarthy and Lauren Gambino, ‘The Republicans who urged Trump to pull out of Paris deal are big oil darlings’, The Guardian (1 June 2017), available at: {https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/01/republican-senators-paris-climate-deal-energy-donations?CMP=twt_gu}.

⁷³ Zack Colman, ‘Republican “climate caucus” offered little support for Paris deal’, Climate Home News (2 June 2017), available at: {http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/06/02/republican-climate-caucus-offered-little-support-paris-deal/}.

⁷⁴ Ryan Schleeter, ‘5 Real Things Mike Pence Has Said About Climate Change’, Greenpeace (15 July 2016), available at: {http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/5-real-things-mike-pence-has-said-about-climate-change/}.

⁷⁵ Jocelyn Timperley, ‘German elections 2017: Where the parties stand on energy and climate change’, Climate Brief (21 September 2017), available at: {https://www.carbonbrief.org/german-election-2017-where-parties-stand-on-energy-climate-change}; Jon Henley, ‘Norway goes to the polls with the future of its oil and gas industry in play’, The Guardian (10 September 2017), available at: {https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/10/norway-goes-polls-future-oil-gas-industry-green-party-kingmaker}; ‘Where Brexit and climate-change scepticism converge’, The Economist (22 March 2016), available at: {https://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2016/03/economics-and-politics}. See also Matthew Lockwood, ‘Right-wing populism and the climate change agenda: Exploring the linkages’, Environmental Politics (online first, 2018).

⁷⁶ Brechin, Steven, ‘Public opinion: a cross-national view’, in Constance Lever-Tracy (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Climate Change and Society (London: Routledge, 2010), pp. 179–209 Google Scholar; Painter, James and Ashe, Teresa, ‘Cross-national comparison of the presence of climate scepticism in the print media in six countries, 2007–10’, Environmental Research Letters, 7:4 (2012)Google Scholar; Young, Nathan and Coutinho, Aline, ‘Government, anti-reflexivity and the construction of public ignorance about climate change: Australia and Canada compared’, Global Environmental Politics, 13:2 (2013), pp. 89–108 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tranter, Bruce and Booth, Kate, ‘Scepticism in a changing climate: a cross-national study’, Global Environmental Change, 33 (2015), pp. 154–164 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷⁷ Young and Coutinho, ‘Government, anti-reflexivity and the construction of public ignorance about climate change’.

⁷⁸ Dunlap, Riley and McCright, Aaron, ‘Organized climate change denial’, in John Dryzek et al. (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 144–160 Google Scholar; McCright, Aaron and Dunlap, Riley, ‘Anti-reflexivity: the American conservative movement’s success in undermining climate science and policy’, Theory, Culture and Society, 27:2–3 (2010), p. 101 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. It should be noted, though, that on some scores the US is not such an extreme outlier: see, for example, Jacob Poushter and Dorothy Manevich, ‘Globally, People Point to ISIS and Climate Change as Leading Security Threats’, Pew Research Center (1 August 2017), available at: {http://www.pewglobal.org/2017/08/01/globally-people-point-to-isis-and-climate-change-as-leading-security-threats/}.

⁷⁹ On the former see, for example, Heath, Yuko and Gifford, Robert, ‘Free-market ideology and environmental degradation: the case of belief in climate change’, Environment and Behavior, 38:1 (2006), pp. 48–71 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Oreskes, Naomi and Conway, Erik, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming (London: Bloomsbury, 2010)Google Scholar; on the latter see, for example, Griffiths, Tom and Robin, Libby (eds), Ecology and Empire: Environmental History of Settler Societies (Keele: Keele University Press, 1997)Google Scholar.

⁸⁰ See, generally, for example, Meyer, Jane, Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right (London: Penguin, 2016)Google Scholar; and MacLean, Nancy, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America (London: Scribe, 2017)Google Scholar; and in relation to climate change specifically, for example, Klein, Naomi, This Change Everything: Capitalism Versus the Climate (London: Penguin, 2015)Google Scholar.

⁸¹ On the roots of the Tea Party movement, see especially, Skocpol, Theda and Williamson, Vanessa, The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸² McCright and Dunlap, ‘Anti-reflexivity’, p. 105

⁸³ See, for example, Kimmel, Michael, Angry White Men: American Masculinity at the End of an Era (New York: Nation Books, 2013)Google Scholar; Parkin, William et al., ‘Tea Party mobilization and power devaluation’, Sociological Spectrum, 35:4 (2015), pp. 329–348 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gammon, Earl, ‘Narcissistic rage and neoliberal reproduction’, Global Society, 31:4 (2017), pp. 510–530 CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸⁴ On methodological nationalism, see especially, Martins, Herminio, ‘Time and theory in sociology’, in John Rex (ed.), Approaches to Sociology: An Introduction to Major Trends in British Sociology (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974), pp. 246–294 Google Scholar; and Wimmer, Andreas and Schiller, Nina Glick, ‘Methodological nationalism and beyond: Nation-state building, migration and the social sciences’, Global Networks, 2:4 (2002), pp. 301–334 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I discuss this issue in relation to other aspects of climate change research in Selby, Jan, ‘Positivist climate conflict research: a critique’, Geopolitics, 19:4 (2014), pp. 829–856 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸⁵ White House Office of the Press Secretary, ‘Statement by President Trump on the Paris Climate Accord’.

⁸⁶ Colin Campbell, ‘Trump: I was joking when I said the Chinese “created” the concept of climate change’, Business Insider (18 January 2016), available at: {http://uk.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-china-created-climate-change-2016-1?r=US&IR=T}. The tweet in question is available at: {https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/265895292191248385} (6 November 2012).

⁸⁷ Kate Aronoff, ‘Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen, and the dangers of “eco-nationalism”’, In These Times (11 December 2015), available at: {http://inthesetimes.com/article/18676/trump_le_pen_front_national_paris_climate_change_talks_and_econationalism}.

⁸⁸ Helm, Dieter, Burnout: The Endgame for Fossil Fuels (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017)Google Scholar, ch. 4.

⁸⁹ Figures calculated from the US Energy Information Administration’s ‘International Energy Statistics’, available at: {https://www.eia.gov/beta/international/data/browser/}. The projections are from International Energy Agency, World Energy Outlook 2017 (IEA, 2017): available at: {https://www.iea.org/weo2017/}.

⁹⁰ ‘US spending bill lifts 40-year ban on crude oil exports’, BBC News (18 December 2015), available at: {http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35136831}; Hogan Lovells, ‘LNG exports – a rare case of policy continuity from Obama to Trump’, Lexology (8 May 2017), available at: {https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=c5630c16-16b2-48d3-8d18-d60880c109b7}.

⁹¹ President Obama’s 2012 State of the Union address (24 January 2012), available at: {http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/01/24/us/politics/state-of-the-union-2012-video-transcript.html}.

⁹² Warner, Barbara and Shapiro, Jennifer, ‘Fractured, fragmented federalism: a study in fracking regulatory policy’, Publius: The Journal of Federalism, 43:3 (2013), pp. 474–496 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rabe, Barry, ‘Shale play politics: the intergovernmental odyssey of American shale governance’, Environmental Science and Technology, 48:15 (2014), pp. 8369–8375 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

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⁹⁴ Ramón Alvarez et al., ‘Assessment of methane emissions from the US oil and gas supply chain’, Science (2018).

⁹⁵ McGlade, Christophe and Ekins, Paul, ‘Un-burnable oil: an examination of oil resource utilisation in a decarbonised energy system’, Energy Policy, 64 (2014), pp. 102–112 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McGlade, Christophe and Ekins, Paul, ‘The geographical distribution of fossil fuels unused when limiting global warming to 2 °C’, Nature, 517 (2015), pp. 187–190 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

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⁹⁸ Beblawi, Hazem and Luciani, Giacomo (eds), The Rentier State: Essays in the Political Economy of Arab Countries (New York: Croon Helm, 1987)Google Scholar.

⁹⁹ World Bank, ‘Fuel Exports (% of Merchandise Exports)’, available at: {https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/TX.VAL.FUEL.ZS.UN?view=chart}. Figures quoted are all for 2013.

¹⁰⁰ Malm, Fossil Capital; Douglas Burgess, Engines of Empire: Steamships and the Victorian Imagination (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2016)Google Scholar.

¹⁰¹ See, for example, Gillingham, John, Industry and Politics in the Third Reich: Ruhr Coal, Hitler and Europe (London: Methuen, 1985)Google Scholar.

¹⁰² Mitchell, Carbon Democracy.

¹⁰³ See, for example, Painter, David, ‘Oil and the American century’, Journal of American History, 99:1 (2012), pp. 24–39 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bromley, Simon, American Hegemony and World Oil: The Industry, The State System and the World Economy (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991)Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁴ See, for example, Lake, David, ‘British and American hegemony compared: Lessons for the current era of decline’, in Jeffry Frieden and David Lake (eds), International Political Economy: Perspectives on Global Wealth and Power (4th edn, London: Routledge, 2014), pp. 127–140 Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁵ On the powers conferred by fossil fuels, see especially, Malm, Fossil Capital.

¹⁰⁶ Betsill, ‘Trump’s Paris withdrawal’, p. 190.

¹⁰⁷ Hulme, Mike, Why We Disagree About Climate Change: Understanding Controversy, Inaction and Opportunity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Hulme, Mike, Weathered: Cultures of Climate (London: Sage, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁰⁸ Falkner, Robert, ‘American hegemony and the global environment’, International Studies Review, 7:4 (2005), pp. 585–599 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Roberts, J. Timmons, ‘Multipolarity and the new world (dis)order: US hegemonic decline and the transformation of the global climate regime’, Global Environmental Change, 21:3 (2011), p. 781 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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¹¹⁰ Layne, Christopher, ‘The US-Chinese power shift and the end of Pax Americana’, International Affairs, 94:1 (2018), pp. 89–111 CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹¹¹ Selby, Jan and Hoffmann, Clemens, ‘Beyond scarcity: Rethinking water, climate change and conflict in the Sudans’, Global Environmental Change, 29 (2014), pp. 360–370 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Selby, Jan et al., ‘Climate change and the Syrian civil war revisited’, Political Geography, 60 (2017), pp. 232-244 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Selby, et al, ‘Climate change and the Syrian civil war revisited: a rejoinder’, Political Geography, 60 (2017), pp. 253–255 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Selby, and Hoffmann, , ‘Rethinking climate change, conflict and security’; Selby, ‘Positivist climate conflict research’. On the predominantly global South and Africa focus of this research and its link to colonial imaginaries, see especially, Betsy Hartmann, ‘Converging on disaster: Climate security and the Malthusian anticipatory regime for Africa’, Geopolitics, 19:4 (2014), pp. 757–783 Google Scholar; and Adams, Courtland et al., ‘Sampling bias in climate-conflict research’, Nature Climate Change, 8 (2018), pp. 200–203 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹¹² For overviews of research on these themes see, for example, on climate change and conflict: Hsiang, Soloman and Burke, Marshall, ‘Climate, conflict, and social stability: What does the evidence say?’, Climatic Change, 123:1 (2013), pp. 39–55 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Selby, ‘Positivist climate conflict research’; and Sakaguchi, Kendra et al., ‘Climate wars? A systematic review of empirical analyses on the links between climate change and violent conflict’, International Studies Review, 19:4 (2017), pp. 622–645 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and on transition, Grubler, Arnulf, ‘Energy transitions research: Insights and cautionary tales’, Energy Policy, 50 (2012), pp. 8–16 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Araújo, Kathleen, ‘The emerging field of energy transitions: progress, challenges, and opportunities’, Energy Research and Social Science, 1 (2014), pp. 112–121 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.