Climate Obstructionism

Abstract

his panel examines climate obstructionism as a multi-level set of strategies that delay, dilute, or derail decarbonization even where formal commitments to climate action exist. It brings together perspectives on how opposition is organized through party politics and far-right mobilization, policy contestation around carbon pricing and sectoral transitions, and the deliberate cultivation of regulatory uncertainty that raises the political and economic costs of action. A central theme is how obstruction operates not only through overt rejection, but through narratives that reframe climate policy as unfair, technocratic, or economically threatening, especially in contentious arenas such as carbon pricing and the transport transition. The panel also foregrounds the legal and institutional channels of obstruction: litigation and judicialization can function as tools of deregulation, intimidation, or delay, while legal “double binds” (being sued for acting and for not acting) can chill corporate and public-sector ambition. Beyond domestic politics, the panel highlights how the international investment regime can redistribute risks and liabilities in ways that entrench fossil infrastructure and constrain host-country policy space, effectively externalizing the costs of transition. Taken together, the contributions conceptualize obstructionism as a repertoire spanning discourse, law, and political organization, and invite discussion of how climate governance can become more resilient through policy design, institutional safeguards, and strategies that anticipate and neutralize obstruction across jurisdictions and levels of governance.

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