In his book, How Neoliberalism Failed, and What a Better Society Could Look Like, which critiques neoliberal policies and explores alternatives for creating a more equitable and sustainable society, American economist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2001 Joseph Stiglitz remarks: “If more institutions are based on cooperation, we are more likely to wind up with more cooperative people.”

This insight highlights a natural tension between single-cause issues, which require focused attention – an approach that has merit – and the need to connect with segments of society on issues that affect their lives on a daily basis. Climate change, for example, often seems far removed.

The paradox with climate issues is precisely this conundrum: it affects everyone, yet it is often perceived as a concern of a few, an enclave of specialised climate activism and policy pressure.

While international diplomacy on climate is now being broadened beyond the negotiations at the yearly climate conference held by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, there is still more work needed to ensure a more unified approach across sectors in both multilateral and mini-lateral processes.

In reality, bridges between climate and development are being built. The leap to economics has already been made; just look at the rise of green industrialism, debt, poverty and the debates on reforms to the global financial architecture, which now include climate concerns.

At this point, you may conclude that just energy transitions are beneficial to the economy and jobs and that they are a good thing. However, this is not always the case, as it depends on who is winning and who is losing. The distributional effects of transitions matter.

Globalisation in the early 1990s was met with euphoria, with China often portrayed as the lodestar in lifting millions out of poverty. Liberalisation was seen as a panacea. The sweat shops of China led to the relocation of industrial capacity from many advanced economies to emerging markets, where production costs were lower.

Yet, disenfranchised workers in advanced economies – farmers and other marginalised classes – who have not truly benefited from liberalisation and globalisation, are now fighting back. This resistance has been captured by right-wing populism. This phenomenon merits some study, particularly since the aggrieved are traditionally the constituencies of the left.This raises the question: Where are organised labour and left-leaning political parties as the right captures this well-spring of discontent?

Liberalism has disenfranchised the working class economically, and their grievances have been appropriated by populist politicians.

Right-wing populism has exploited fears of immigrants, portraying them as job thieves and criminals, while also leveraging identity politics and growing distrust in government by presenting themselves as allies of common people.

Let’s not be fooled that this is not a case of elites fighting against elites. The Donald Trump/JD Vance election campaign in the US exemplifies this dynamic, with Trump representing the upper crust and Vance, a working- class individual from a broken home, finding a new identity at Yale University and embracing Catholicism.

The underclass is now being pitted against each other, if one considers the way anti- immigrant sentiment has been used to win votes from working-class communities in the US and Europe.

These factors contribute to further disenfranchisement and the breakdown of social and economic solidarity, with feelings of anger and anxiety being weaponised.

The fear of immigrants is often sensationalised as an invasion by ‘barbarians’, a narrative echoed in books such as Saints of the Camps, by the French author Jean Raspail, with incendiary language thriving in populist strongholds.

This was vividly illustrated by recent riots in the UK, where deliberate falsification of identity was used as a tool for weaponising anti- immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiments, making Britain appear on the brink of a civil war.

In South Africa, a group calling itself Operation Dudula has been active in townships and poor communities, harassing, beating and chasing foreigners, whom it blames for taking jobs and business opportunities away from South Africans. In Europe, similar sentiments have taken on racial and Islamophobic undertones, and this is reshaping Europe’s relations with Africa and the Middle East, in particular.

This divide is further amplified by the rise of automation and AI. Automation is consolidating production in the hands of machines, further disenfranchising workers, while the ubiquity of AI technology – capable of surveying the desires and political passions of individuals – reinforces bias and turns people against one another.

Populism does not always speak the truth.

There are contradictions between political rhetoric and reality. For example, the Italian population is aging, leaving fewer local people available to perform menial jobs. Immigrants from South Asia and Africa work in farms picking tomatoes, enduring inhumane conditions and sometimes dying under extreme heat, all for the sake of profit and keeping the Italian economy ticking.

We are indeed on the brink of something entirely different, challenging traditional models of collective action that are now being replaced by communal and insular forms of humanity among people who feel less beholden to cultural diversity and human rights. Instead, they seek to reclaim royalty to the ‘tribe’ as a way to define national politics and culture.

The future of climate activism will be shaped by these new fractures in society as humanity hurtles into modern, tech-enabled tribes that exist in a constant state of conflict over values, adhering to their own truths and preferring a tech-enabled insularity from others rather than a pragmatically-arrived-at consensus of unity.

The setbacks the Greens are facing in Europe suggest that single-cause issues are increasingly coming up against other social and economic concerns, which will delay decarbonisation transitions.

As climate concerns, which are single-cause issues, compete with daily concerns, the link between climate and development has never been more pertinent. Local social and economic concerns must align with global climate action.