“We found that counter climate change organizations tend to emerge after pro-environmental policies are institutionalized in government,” said senior study author Patricia Bromley, associate professor of environmental social sciences in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and of education at Stanford Graduate School of Education.

Reacting to government policies

Bromley set out in 2021 to understand why counter climate change organizations form in some countries and not others. Working with lead study author Jared Furuta, a postdoctoral scholar at the Stanford ​​Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society, she assembled and analyzed data going back to 1990 from previous studies spanning 164 countries.

Prior to 1990, just two years after the creation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “there was little to mobilize against,” the authors write.

Although more than 60% of the 548 organizations identified in the study are based in the United States, the groups are now present in 51 countries – up from 25 in 1990. The economic interests of the energy and agricultural sectors – which together contribute more than half of global greenhouse gas emissions – are certainly involved in shaping the counter climate change movement, said Furuta. Countries with oil revenues as a higher percentage of GDP are less likely to have a counter climate change organization, according to the analysis.

“Our study finds that one thing that ties these organizations together is their reaction to government policies aimed at combating climate change,” Furuta said. The authors found no links between the presence of counter climate change organizations and nations’ greenhouse gas emissions per capita or industrial activity. They excluded for-profit companies and government agencies from their list but did not examine counter climate change organizations’ sources of funding.

‘Not just about climate’

The world’s leading scientists overwhelmingly agree climate change is primarily caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases and already harming people and nature.

In a shift from the climate change denial efforts launched by the fossil fuel industry in the 1980s, the researchers found that many counter climate change organizations now frame their opposition around cultural identity or threats to a way of life. “It’s not just about climate anymore,” Bromley said. “In some cases, these movements align with other reactionary cultural movements, like those opposing vaccines or advocating for traditional gender roles.”

The researchers suggest strategic community engagement by policymakers could help broaden support for climate mitigation and adaptation efforts. “We need to be proactive in addressing mobilized cultural opposition as part of the policy design process from the start,” Bromley said.

Furuta added that political polarization may strengthen the countermovement’s appeal, an argument that the researchers plan to examine in the future. “As the political climate becomes more divided, movements like this seem to find fertile ground,” he said. “What began as a small fringe group can grow over time as it taps into broader anxieties about change, loss of cultural identity, or government overreach.”