The Green Leviathan: Climate Statecraft and the New Realignment of Global Power

In this study group, M-RCBG Senior Fellow Justin Dargin explores how climate policy, energy transitions, and green-economy rules are reshaping global markets, geopolitics, development, and the balance of power.

The global transition away from fossil fuels is rewriting the architecture of international relations. Decarbonization is no longer simply an environmental project; it is becoming a contest over the technologies, markets, resources, and infrastructure that will shape the next economic order. This study group explores the intersection of climate policy, public policy, and geopolitics, examining how governments are turning climate rules into instruments of statecraft as the liberal international order fragments and competing models of economic power emerge. The disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz sharpen the stakes, exposing the vulnerabilities of established energy networks while accelerating the race to secure alternative energy, infrastructure, and critical resources.

Together, we will ask who writes the rules of the green economy, who captures its gains, and who bears its costs, and whether the emerging order will deepen cooperation or redraw the lines of global power.

Key Analytical Pillars:

Europe: The Power to Regulate the World

How the EU is using climate-linked trade rules such as CBAM to project regulatory power beyond its borders and reshape the terms of global competition.

America: Industrial Power in a Fragmenting World

How tariffs, oil abundance, and renewed state intervention are being deployed to protect strategic industries, secure supply chains, and preserve U.S. economic advantage.

The Arabian Gulf States: Turning Oil Wealth into Green Power

How hydrocarbon-rich states are deploying sovereign capital, energy expertise, and industrial capacity to secure influence across the emerging green economy before the value of their traditional energy advantages declines.

Africa: Development Against the Clock

How resource-rich African states are racing to harness hydrocarbons and critical minerals to expand energy access and industrialize, even as global decarbonization threatens to close the window for hydrocarbon-led development.