Rory Stewart’s message is not that the scientific case for climate action has weakened. It hasn’t.
It is that the political systems meant to respond to this crisis have changed profoundly and that this shift makes effective, evidence-driven environmental organisations more essential than ever.
A political system no longer built for long-term challenges
Rory begins by looking briefly at the past. For two decades after the Cold War, global challenges were met with expanding international cooperation. Early climate agreements, growing development budgets and a shared belief in evidence-based policymaking made progress possible. Here, he uses history to illuminate the present: a political system that now struggles to act on long-term, global environmental risks.
The post-2014 shift: polarisation, fragmentation and retreat
Around 2014, politics entered a new phase. Consensus fractured. Populism gained ground. Expertise became contested. International cooperation gave way to protectionism. For climate and nature, these circumstances were are uniquely damaging.
Environmental protection requires exactly the ingredients modern politics finds hardest to deliver:
- legislation
- planning over decades
- and coordination across borders
Rory highlights how climate denial has become a mobilising force for parts of the populist right, often bound up with nationalist rhetoric and hostility to international institutions. Even where denial is avoided, commitments are weakened, delayed or recast as economic threats.
The UK offers an example of this. Targets once passed with broad support are now described, even by their former champions, as unrealistic or burdensome. Long-term environmental goals are traded away for short-term political advantage.
Rory argues a central point in this dilemma is that climate change cannot be solved in isolation. Emissions do not respect national borders. Protecting ecosystems in one region achieves little if other regions are continuously destructed. Two or three countries “doing the right thing” is not enough.
Climate action only works coordinated internationally, precisely the kind of cooperation now under strain. This creates a dangerous gap between what science demands and what politics is currently capable of delivering.
The collapse of reliable public funding
Drawing on his experience in government, Rory describes how dramatically the funding landscape has shifted. As International Development Secretary, he worked with a large, protected aid budget. Environmental programmes could be expanded confidently, supported by institutions designed to operate at scale.
That certainty has largely disappeared.
- Aid budgets have been reduced or redirected.
- Funds intended for long-term global challenges are squeezed to meet short-term domestic priorities.
- In several countries, development agencies are shrinking or restructuring.
For organisations working on forests, oceans, land use and environmental law, the effect is stark: consistent government leadership can no longer be relied upon.
A new central role for independent, expert organisations
Despite this bleak political backdrop, he argues not for pessimism but for clarity about where progress now comes from. When politics is stable, charities often play a supporting role. When politics stalls, charities become pivotal.
This is the context in which the environmental charities supported by the Global Returns Project operate. These organisations work from evidence, not ideology. They expose illegal fishing, unlawful pollution and destructive land use. They defend environmental law. Just as importantly, they work across borders.
When formal international cooperation weakens, the Global Returns Project’s portfolio of charities share responsibility for systems no country controls alone: from rainforests, to oceans, to the atmosphere. Through litigation, monitoring and public transparency, they can compel action even when political will is weak.
A widening gap between science and political response
Rory’s most sobering insight is the contrast between rapidly intensifying scientific evidence and increasingly fragile political responses. The impacts of climate change are visible: extreme heat, floods, collapsing ecosystems, air pollution, food insecurity. The scientific message is clearer than ever.
Yet the political machinery designed to act is slowing, fracturing or retreating. This mismatch – between escalating risks and weakened institutions – defines the moment we are in today. As Rory suggests, this is in this space that independent, high-impact environmental organisations now operate.
A different kind of leadership
Rory concludes with a quiet but direct challenge. If governments are less able or willing to lead on long-term environmental protection, responsibility shifts outward. Leadership now comes from those who defend evidence, uphold environmental law, and continue pressing for action despite political turbulence. Philanthropy, civil society and expert organisations are no longer peripheral. They are essential to keeping progress alive.
Supporting effective climate and nature charities is not an expression of optimism that politics will fix itself. It is a practical strategy to ensure there remain capable, credible actors driving change while politics catches up. This is why well-resourced environmental action through the Global Returns Project is not just important, but indispensable.
– Watch the full event on Youtube with Rory Stewart and Tim Lenton (Professor of Climate Change and Earth System Science at the University of Exeter)