Climate Still Changes Everything

Abstract

When the Inflation Reduction Act was signed into law last August, it was celebrated as the biggest piece of federal climate legislation ever passed in the United States. This was an astonishingly low bar to clear: the IRA is also the country’s only real climate legislation. If its passage was a dubious landmark, it also stood at the end of an era for a U.S. climate movement galvanized nearly fifteen years earlier by the near-collapse of the UN climate conference in 2009 and the failure of previous federal legislation in 2010. Over the intervening years, the climate movement tacked sharply to the left as it grew more radical in its tactics and more visionary in its demands. The movement has undoubtedly changed the tenor of U.S. politics. But it has also run up against the limits of its power. What comes next?