The Climate Paradox: Reset Climate Action for a Realistic, Just Future?

Despite the increasingly urgent tone of global climate discourse, we remain caught in a paradox. While governments trumpet their net-zero ambitions and tout advances in wind, solar, and electric vehicles, the world’s actual consumption of fossil fuels continues to rise. Nowhere is this paradox more visible than in rapidly developing economies like China and India, which are simultaneously the engines of global growth and the epicentres of new coal-fired energy expansion.

According to the Tony Blair Institute’s recent paper, The Climate Paradox, China began construction on 95 gigawatts of new coal capacity in 2024—nearly equal to Europe’s entire coal output. India, for its part, reached a symbolic milestone by producing 1 billion tonnes of coal in a single year. These developments are not aberrations. They are manifestations of a hard truth: countries in the Global South are prioritising economic development and energy security, often powered by hydrocarbons, while the developed world insists on decarbonisation timelines that may seem detached from economic realities.

 Is it time to reset the climate conversation—radically and honestly?

[https://institute.global/insights/climate-and-energy/the-climate-paradox-why-we-need-to-reset-action-on-climate-change]

A Realistic Reset, Not a Retreat

Let’s be clear: calling for a reset of climate action is not a call to abandon it. Quite the opposite. The challenge is not that the world is doing too little, but that we’re often doing the wrong things, in the wrong places, and with the wrong framing. The current Western climate playbook assumes that fossil fuels can be phased out rapidly across all geographies. But without credible, scalable, and affordable alternatives for industrializing nations, this approach is, as the Institute bluntly puts it, “doomed to fail.”

Instead of promoting carbon austerity—asking billions to forgo prosperity in the name of climate piety—we need an agenda rooted in pragmatism and opportunity.

Climate Realism Is Climate Justice

The reality is that Africa, South Asia, and Latin America did not cause the climate crisis. Yet their development is at risk of being hampered by rigid net-zero diktats crafted in Brussels or Washington. If climate justice means anything, it must include the right to growth. It must acknowledge that clean energy transitions will look different in Lagos than in London, in Mumbai than in Manchester.

We must also reframe the conversation from one of “climate sacrifice” to one of “climate opportunity.” Technological innovation—ranging from advanced renewables, AI and grid storage to carbon capture and synthetic fuels—should be the centerpiece of this strategy. Let us be ambitious about deploying these technologies at scale and across borders, enabling development without the emissions.

The private sector, too, has a crucial role to play. Instead of being vilified, industries should be incentivized to innovate. Governments should focus less on restricting consumption and more on driving competition in clean tech. The solution is not less capitalism, but smarter capitalism.

Bridging the Political Divide

This recalibration is not just environmental—it is deeply political. In many democracies, climate action is becoming synonymous with higher costs, job losses, and moral grandstanding. As Blair himself recently warned, if policies are perceived as elitist or anti-growth, they will backfire. The backlash will not only derail climate goals—it could fracture political consensus for a generation.

In the UK, for instance, political leaders are now caught in a rhetorical crossfire. While former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had watered down green pledges, Labour’s Keir Starmer is doubling down. Yet both camps risk missing the point: what matters most is not how aggressively we legislate emissions cuts, but how credibly we enable transitions that work—for workers, for investors, and for the global poor.

Towards a Shared Future

Resetting climate policy means abandoning performative targets in favour of practical strategies. It means shifting the centre of climate diplomacy to include Nairobi, Jakarta, São Paulo—not just Berlin and Paris. It means viewing the Global South not as a recipient of Western virtue but as a co-architect of global solutions.

This is not a retreat from ambition. It is a strategic re-alignment designed to win the war, not just feel good fighting it.

Perhaps the future of climate action lies not in moral purism, but in moral pragmatism. Not in mandates alone, but in markets. Not in lectures from the West, but in partnerships across the world.

For a critique of Blair’s Climate Paradox Report:

[https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/news/response-to-tony-blair-institutes-the-climate-paradox-report/]