The project focuses on the role of the far-right and white nationalist movements in perpetrating climate refusal actions in the United States. While much has been written about the energy sector’s role in climate denial and refusal, the actual motivations and strategies utilised by right-wing politicians is unclear. In this project, I endeavoured to assist Professor Pulido’s research in uncovering links between the right and climate refusal by creating a chronological list of climate refusal actions by right-wing policy-makers from the 1990s to the present, and analysing common patterns among these incidents.
Research Tasks:
At the start of this project I was initially tasked with completing different foundational readings on climate sociology and policy in the United States. These readings were vital in introducing me to qualitative research, as well as fields of geography and sociology, which were especially helpful given the fact that throughout my academic career I was solely exposed to law related content.
Apart from this, the main task of the project was to identify, catalogue and categorise right-wing climate refusal actions chronologically from the 1990s to the present. As the list’s purpose was to identify right-wing motivations for climate refusal, I also included summaries and an analysis on potential motivations based on further research for Professor Pulido to look over and discuss in our meetings.
Methodology
Given the qualitative nature of this project, the methodology for this project evolved over time as we noticed different patterns in the categorisation of data, and gained further resources to investigate climate refusal actions.
Firstly, identifying categories of climate refusal strategies was an essential task before cataloguing actions, and this was achieved through our discussions on the foundational readings for climate sociology. We decided to take note of whether a climate refusal action was related to Climate Delay Discourse, Legislation, Executive Actions, Legal Challenges or Access to Information. However, later on in our research we began to create loose subcategories after observing specific patterns within each climate refusal strategy. For example, within Access to information, there were different entries related to censorship, interference with education, or misrepresentation. Furthermore, we separated lists of climate refusal actions on a federal, state-level, and local level as different politicians within these hierarchies often had different competencies and strategies.
Secondly, the resources used to record climate refusal actions varied over time. We initially examined four databases focusing on different strategies and time periods of climate refusal actions. Upon weighing each databases’ strengths, limitations, and source evaluations we decided to utilise Columbia’s Silencing Science Tracker and the Climate Action Tracker as a starting point. Later, we examined archives and articles from journalistic mediums such as but not limited to; InsideClimate News, the Washington Post, the NYT, as well as congressional records and transcripts from the Library of Congress.
After researching a climate refusal action, I could catalogue it onto the spreadsheet in chronological order by date alongside its relevant categories, with summaries, analyses, and references (please open image below).
Results
The research for this project is still ongoing. The following information presents our current observations, and primarily deals with climate refusal actions from 2012 and onwards with a focus during the Biden and Trump years.
The data for climate refusal actions in the US was vast, ranging from public statements, legislative actions or proposals, executive and departmental actions, as well as legal challenges and decisions. While it was difficult to research motivations for every climate-refusal action we encountered due to a lack of transparency in decision-making, after cataloguing numerous entries on both federal and state-level refusal actions, we discovered various patterns linking climate refusal acts to right-wing and/or white-nationalist movements.
Firstly, the over-politicisation of climate action in public discourse has been used to link this movement to ‘radicalised’ left wing agendas opposed to general conservative ideals. By using terms such as ‘woke’ and ‘radical’ to describe often mainstream left-wing movements such as racial justice or wealth equity, the explicit use of these terms to describe climate action acts as an ‘effective dog whistle’ holding ‘racial implications’ (Neiman 2023). This was clear in entries related to conservative opposition to ESG investing in retirement funds, where federal and state-level politicians labelled such acts as ‘woke’ and a trend of ‘political correctness’, despite the fact that most major investment firms in the US have voluntarily implemented ESG investment strategies and boycotted fossil-fuels (Gelles 2023). The same sentiments were echoed by representatives in response to Biden’s suspension on oil permitting, international climate finance, and other solutions. Thus, rather than engaging with the threat of climate change, right-wing politicians have displayed a tendency to invoke tribalistic discourse towards conservative and white-nationalist followers by distracting voters with a banal culture-war instead.
Secondly, justifications of protectionism, neo-colonial ideals, and western nationalism have been spouted in response to economic and foreign policy related to climate change by right-wing politicians. This was relevant during the Trump era seen in speeches related to climate-policyroll backs or the withdrawal from international treaties. In his Paris Agreement Withdrawal speech, he alluded to climate action as part of a war against America, and that climate-cooperation or finance would cause "lax contributions to our critical military alliance” and would raid funds “out of America’s budget for the war against terrorism". In the speech he referred to climate action as the work of ‘foreign lobbyists’, othering the climate-agenda as a threat to American nationalism (2017). Concerns of protectionism have also been cited byTrump and fellow right-wing politicians, emphasising the need to regain economic competition over ‘adversaries’ like Russia and China (Reuters 2021). Hence, the consistent referral of climate action as a threat to the ‘American agenda’ in both military and economic discussions label it as a foreign concept threatening protectionist and nationalist ideals.
Lastly, several discreet but concrete rollbacks during the Trump era in departmental climate policy and censorship in research, did not face public scrutiny or provide any justifications for their being. While we did not delve far into researching these patterns, further investigations into this can be found in Professor Pulido’s article ‘Environmental Deregulation, Spectacular Racism,and White Nationalism in the Trump Era’, which argues that Trump's "spectacular racism" helped obscure the profound environmental deregulation underway.
Personal Experience
The research assistantship provided me the opportunity to grow academically and personally. By exposing me to different fields outside my discipline of study I learnt how topics like geography and sociology are also crucial in analysing the motivations and impacts of lawmaking. I also gained experience in qualitative research I would have otherwise missed out on, and as a result, I am now hoping to explore a career in research and academia as well. I’m extremely grateful to the Centre and Professor Pulido for making this experience possible, and being so wonderful to work with throughout the year.