Though gaining political clout in the West, the movement’s internal paradoxes and global shifts are weakening its foundation.
Across much of the Western world a wave of anti-environmentalism is rising challenging climate targets, attacking conservation measures, and reshaping politics in the US, UK, and Europe. Yet, behind the slogans and campaign rhetoric lies a movement riddled with contradictions.
At its core anti-environmentalism is a rejection of environmental policies and climate activism. But its messages are often inconsistent, even self-defeating. In one breath, leaders denounce climate science and defund environmental protections. In the next, they proclaim themselves lovers of “clean air” and “beautiful nature.”
Take Donald Trump. During his presidency, he rolled back key environmental safeguards and banned climate research funding. Yet, at a 2024 rally in Wisconsin, he declared, “I’m an environmentalist. I want clean air and clean water. Really clean water. Really clean air.”
This paradox illustrates a larger shift. Modern anti-environmentalism isn’t rooted in traditional conservatism which once championed the protection of natural heritage but rather in populist, reactionary politics that treat green goals as elite overreach.
Groups like the Conservative Environment Network still try to remind right-leaning voters that conservatives historically led environmental progress from establishing US national parks to supporting early pollution controls. But the populist right is moving in a different direction, abandoning these values even as public support for environmental action grows.
Polls show that 80% of Britons are concerned about climate change. In the US, most citizens including many Republicans back the Environmental Protection Agency’s work. This isn’t just ideological support. People are seeing the effects of environmental degradation firsthand: strange weather, vanishing wildlife, and rising food insecurity.
In my research for a forthcoming book on environmental nostalgia, I’ve encountered a persistent irony. Many who say they want to “take their country back” also oppose policies that would preserve its lands, waters, and ecosystems.
This isn’t simple denial. Anti-environmentalism often reflects resentment toward policies that ask people to change their lives switch cars, retrofit homes, or alter jobs. But even so, it remains wrapped in contradictions. Trump and others still claim the environmentalist label while attacking its foundations.
I suggest we understand this as a difference between “cold” and “hot” environmentalism. The “cold” version appreciates nature from a distance through images, slogans, or nostalgia but resists taking action to protect it. “Hot” environmentalism, by contrast, accepts the discomfort and urgency of our situation, recognizing that loving nature also means defending it.
This tension is especially clear in populist politics. Reform UK, for example, has flip-flopped on climate change. In 2024, former leader Richard Tice called climate action “ludicrous.” Yet, months later, new leader Nigel Farage insisted he wasn’t denying climate science just rejecting the targets as unfair.
It’s a moving target: deny climate change one day, then argue the solutions are impractical the next. These shifts aren’t about science they’re about political identity and perceived injustice, especially compared to countries like China.
But here lies another paradox. While anti-environmental rhetoric often singles out China and other non-Western countries for supposedly “doing nothing,” the truth is the opposite. Environmentalism is becoming increasingly global and post-Western.
Across Asia and Africa where the climate crisis is hitting hardest, environmentalism is about survival. In the Sahel and South Asia, rising heat and erratic rainfall threaten lives, livelihoods, and food security. In China, state-led initiatives despite ongoing fossil fuel us aim to create a future “ecological civilisation.”
These shifts challenge the idea that environmentalism is a luxury of the rich West. In fact, the global South is becoming the new frontier of climate action.
The anti-environmentalist movement may be gaining ground in the West for now, but its contradictions between identity and evidence, rhetoric and reality make it inherently unstable. The world is changing. And despite the noise, most people, from Britain to Bangladesh, still want a cleaner, safer planet.