A Climate Cold War Between the US and China Would Lead to Nuclear Summer

In his 2024 State of the Union Address, President Joe Biden told America, “I want competition with China, not conflict.” He went on to say that, by his doing, the U.S. is now “in a stronger position to win the conflict of the 21st century against China.” The U.S. is not at war, but Biden warns of conflict. He is talking, I believe, about climate change, and he is declaring America’s involvement in a New Cold War. His climate policies, governed by a metaphor of competition between the U.S. and China, bode terribly for the world’s future.

The conflict of the 21st century that Biden refers to has already begun, and the president’s conflation of climate policy and foreign policy reflects that. Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act marked the largest climate mitigation investment in American history, but its purpose was to serve as a shield for American workers in a trade war with China. While the bill subsidizes domestic green energy production and manufacturing in order to transition toward sustainability, its stated goal is to “advance America’s economic and foreign policy objectives.” The U.S. has since moved to build up domestic manufacturing, invest in green technologies, and shelter American workers from Chinese efficiency. Weeks ago, Biden threatened to triple tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum imports, and his treasury secretary called China’s excess of green energy exports “unacceptable from the U.S. point of view.” In the Climate Cold War, American profit matters more than global prosperity.

Another Cold War will gloss over the inequalities that have existed before and since the last one—and leave the world hotter too.

I’m 19, and I really, really don’t want to live through a Climate Cold War. I don’t want my future to be limited by minute technology changes and market solutions. I don’t want green energy to be weaponized for profit, and U.S. industry to be prioritized over the global climate. I find myself asking: What price is America willing to pay for a livable climate? Why doesn’t the rest of the world get a say? And why is it always a price? While the U.S. and China have contributed disproportionately to global warming, climate change impacts everyone—and everyone, not just American and Chinese politicians, should be involved in solutions. There is so much more than economic competition—so many more solutions than conflict. China is not the enemy, and global warming isn’t either. It’s the corporations that make the planet hotter, and the structures they’ve built to get us hooked on fossil fuels.

The last Cold War was a struggle between capitalism and communism. And just as in the last, American politicians see capitalism as the only solution to a global crisis. Climate change, however, is caused by endless extraction and unsustainable production. A New Cold War will divide the world just like the first one. The winners will be the same governments and corporations that can profit from a war machine, the losers the same poor nations and people who will be left to scramble in an uncertain world. A trade war between the U.S. and China amid the backdrop of global warming will ignore these people, who are in many cases the least responsible for climate change and yet the most affected.

People around the world are still recovering from the damage done to them since the last Cold War. It’s no coincidence that previous sites of American imperialism have been left particularly vulnerable to climate change. Left politically unstable from decades of American intervention, Afghanistan is facing and will continue to face its worst droughts yet. Devastated by the U.S. war, Vietnam is at risk of coastal flooding and is vulnerable to severe tropical storms. And Grenada, site of a Cold War invasion, lacks the resources to adapt to rising sea levels, degrading ecosystems, and frequent hurricanes. Another Cold War will gloss over the inequalities that have existed before and since the last one—and leave the world hotter too.

Neither conflict nor competition will mitigate the effects of climate change. True change will come from global cooperation, not trade wars between the two largest emitters. Even truer change won’t come from Washington or Beijing, but through local communities and ground-level changes. Climate change affects us all, some specifically more than others. As in the last Cold War, humanity is faced with some ultimate choices. This time around, we already pressed the big red button. While the world needs the U.S. and China’s efforts, a Climate Cold War between the two superpowers will only end in a nuclear summer. It’s hot enough already.