Climate change is an inherently political problem. Efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change require collective action; climate policies are often politically thorny because they have major distributive consequences for countries, economic sectors, and individuals. It is no wonder, then, that disagreements over climate policy are often so contentious. We saw this most recently during last month’s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, where participants split over issues related to climate financing and the phase-out of fossil fuels.

Readers familiar with political debates in the United States and Europe may recognise that climate change is politicized domestically. But climate change is also politicized in the international system. Often, states politicize climate change by linking unrelated foreign-policy issues to their climate pledges. In doing so, they threaten the cooperation needed to keep global temperature rise “well below” 2 degrees Celsius.

Under the Paris Agreement, states submit Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) outlining their commitments to reducing emissions and supposedly “ratcheting up” their ambition every five years. However, NDCs give countries the opportunity to shape political narratives and politicize climate negotiations based on their foreign-policy priorities. For example, Ukraine’s latest NDC, submitted before Russia’s assault in 2022 but after the 2014 annexation of Crimea, pointedly references the “ongoing military aggression of the Russian Federation” as one of the “main obstacles” to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Similarly, Argentina’s NDC references the Falkland Islands dispute, declaring, “The islands are illegally occupied by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.”

Foreign-policy issues like these have varying degrees of relevance for climate change. As of this writing, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has caused over 175 million tons of carbon pollution to be released into the atmosphere. But the Falklands? It’s hard to see the connection.

Sometimes, states engage in political posturing to excuse a lack of progress in delivering on their climate pledges. Syria, for example, repeatedly refers to the “terrorist war against the Syrian Arab Republic” and “the illegal international coalition” that prevent it from committing to more ambitious climate action. Never mind the fact that the Assad regime had a grand total of three climate policies before the Syrian Civil War.

The Venezuelan NDC similarly proclaims, “In a heroic action of resistance, water workers increased the production capacity of drinking water to 134,400 liters per second in the year 2020, all amid the aggression of the United States of North America and the European Union through unilateral coercive measures.” How the final clause of that sentence represents anything of practical relevance beyond political posturing is unclear.

This use of NDCs as political tools is especially peculiar in states that lack United Nations membership. Palestine, officially a non-member observer state of the UN outlines two possible scenarios in their NDC: a “status-quo” scenario in which the Israeli occupation of Palestine continues and an “independence scenario” in which Palestine is a sovereign state. Unsurprisingly, the latter pledges greater climate action. 

Kosovo, also not a member of the UN, is in the process of drafting an NDC. The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, largely unrecognized by the international community, released an NDC in 2021. The drafting of NDCs by non-members of the UN has less to do with genuine environmental commitments and more to do with the strategic desire to acquire legitimacy and, eventually, statehood. Doing so, however, politicizes climate action by tying it to other foreign-policy issues, even those as contentious as questions of national sovereignty.

Of course, many international factors shape states’ capacity to take action on climate change, so it is somewhat unsurprising that foreign-policy issues creep into NDCs. But the way international actors write their NDCs often simply uses them for flagrant political posturing. 

This politicization of international climate pledges is ultimately unhelpful for efforts to achieve the goal of the Paris Agreement. While national contributions under the Paris Agreement are voluntary, making such commitments and then improving on them can only occur in a spirit of international cooperation. Important as many other foreign-policy issues may be, the recent climate negotiations in Baku are neither the time nor place to negotiate such disputes. Progress is urgently needed to combat the climate crisis – which is already causing humanitarian disasters, displacing people around the world, and exacerbating violent conflict – and the international community must compartmentalize issues to achieve progress.

The foundational idea of the Paris Agreement is that it isn’t binding. It succeeded where previous negotiations failed by creating a system where states make voluntary contributions and continually improve upon them. This idea rests on a shared sense of trust that is necessary to ensure states work together towards a common goal. Inserting other foreign-policy issues into process jeopardizes the success of the Paris Agreement.