Collectively, developing countries are the source of one-third of the global pollution causing climate change. If one classifies China as a developing country, then all developing countries combined currently produce about two-thirds of global greenhouse gas pollution. Their emissions are on course to rise without far more effective governance measures. Thus, the future of climate governance, and indeed of the climate crisis, will very much depend on whether more attention is given to what is happening in developing countries. Vitally, many of these countries are the most vulnerable to climate change. For some of them, climate change is becoming an existential threat, as it certainly will be for millions, and potentially hundreds of millions, of their citizens. Developing countries are in precarious positions in the context of global climate governance. For a few economically emerging countries, such as India, their contribution to climate change is very substantial, but the least developed countries of the world, and many small and highly vulnerable island states are often hapless victims of a problem created almost entirely by others.

National politics will determine which interests are given priority in climate governance. More often than not, climate action never makes it to the top of the list of governments’ priorities, and at the very least that action is watered down. For most countries, climate governance is very largely a function of domestic political considerations. This chapter describes how the pathologies of national politics have manifested themselves in the United States and China. These two countries are examined in some detail here because they are the largest national sources of greenhouse gas pollution, together accounting for about 40 percent of the global total. These countries’ experiences tell us much of what we need to know about the pathologies of national politics and how those pathologies interact with the pathologies of international relations. They demonstrate the degree to which the pathologies of national politics have infected climate governance around the world. In both countries, there have been some efforts to govern climate change, but vastly less than what the science demands, and indeed far short of what other countries have demanded.

A picture that emerges is one of national interests being perceived, for reasons arising almost exclusively from national politics, in ways that effectively discount the threat of climate change. Climate change has been on the national agenda for decades, but national politics has repeatedly prevented it from being interpreted as a vital national interest by most national governments. Most countries still perceive the risk of acting to address climate effectively as being a threat to their economies, or at least to powerful economic actors. This does not necessarily cause them to ignore climate change, but it does result, at best, in watered-down climate policies. A question is whether this picture of national politics reveals widespread pathologies of climate governance in developed countries. This chapter aims to start answering this question by looking at the governance of climate change in the European Union, Russia, Australia, Canada and Japan. This gives a picture of how pathologies of national politics influence climate governance globally. Climate change is perceived to be a national interest to the extent that national politics determine it to be so.