Green Industrial Policy and the Global Transformation of Climate Politics

The rise of green industrial policy has injected purpose and competition into global environmental politics. Efforts to build green industry have raised the economic and geopolitical stakes of environmental issues as states seek to position their firms in global value chains and reshore strategic industries. This could help to generate the technologies and political momentum needed to accelerate global decarbonization. At the same time, these green interventions confront status quo interests and a variety of industrial policies that support fossil fuel-based industries. To help make sense of this new landscape, this introduction to the special issue defines green industrial policy and situates it within domestic political economy, social policy, and global geopolitics. We present six new studies that demonstrate and explore the global politics of green industrial policy. To illustrate the kinds of effects and implications of green industrial policy we are interested in exploring, we show how green industrial policy has transformed climate politics. Changes in state practice, ideas about the environment and economy, and technological cost declines came together to produce a new opportunistic and competitive climate politics. We then identify areas for further investigation as we call for a new climate politics research agenda, integrating green industrial policy more intentionally into studies of global environmental politics.