Viggo Terling, is a Research Associate at the Adam Smith Institute and member of Chatham House’s Common Futures Conversations.
COP30 – It ends this weekend and has lasted two weeks and it’s probably right to say some (but by no means all) of the world’s attention has been focused on Brazil, as multiple discussions were held on the future of climate policy.
Increasingly, however, an under the surface disconnect has been brewing.
This year, for the first time in my lifetime, it seems the pendulum has swung against the global consensus on climate action. As Starmer put it recently, “the consensus is gone” on treating fighting climate change as a shared global endeavour — and much of that fracture has been driven by the right.
According to the Pew Research Centre, a committed conservative is someone who is economically liberal, socially tolerant, and internationalist. While that definition is sound, it is not complete. True conservatives are also empirically minded — believers in institutions of knowledge.
In other words, they are pro-science.
Yet, according to Pew, committed conservatives encompass only seven per cent of the American public. That figure says a great deal about the extent to which values important to conservatism have been reimagined by the mainstream right.
Across many conservative circles today, trusting scientific consensus has become almost taboo. Too often, certain factions are marred by arrogance — a belief that ideology trumps evidence. The Trump administration’s casual dismissal of science epitomises this. The President’s labelling of climate change as “the greatest con job ever,” or RFK Jr.’s crusade against vaccine research both represent a disdain for empirical data — especially when that data contradicts one’s own rhetoric.
This same disdain is slowly becoming more visible closer to home.
In British right-wing circles, suspicion of scientific expertise is increasingly more common, even among those who can quote Cicero but not explain carbon capture. Many are quick to question the validity of scientific conclusions, having often not read the reports they are drawn from.
But in such debates, the scientific community is not an innocent victim. It has itself to blame for its own vilification. The pandemic eroded public trust. The scientific community’s cautious, “safety-first” approach to handling COVID-19 — manifested through its zeal for lockdowns — heightened scepticism of science’s role in policy making.
Of course, while science can inform policy, it should not dictate it. The Health Secretary need not be a doctor. As Edmund Burke understood, prudence, or practical wisdom, is necessary to govern effectively. While science illuminates facts; it can struggle to make decisions in the face of conflicting interests — to weigh the utilitarian value of normative outcomes.
Nevertheless, abandoning faith in science altogether would be disastrous and nothing demonstrates that more vividly than vaccine scepticism. At their party conference, Reform platformed vaccine sceptic Aseem Malholtra, allowing him to claim before millions that vaccines were linked to the recent spate of cancer diagnoses within the Royal Family. Such blatant pseudoscience should neither be given a platform nor allowed near public policy. Malhotra’s claims are especially troubling, for vaccine scepticism kills. Take measles in the United States — a disease declared eradicated in 2000 — that has recently returned. The resurgence of measles in the US was preventable and it stands as an obvious warning of where such thinking leads.
This denialism extends beyond general health. As President Trump’s recent comments show, it now engulfs climate science too.
Please do not mistake this argument as propaganda or a mouthpiece for Just Stop Oil or Extinction Rebellion. It is quite the opposite.
Like many, I harbour doubts: I am unconvinced that deindustrialisation purely to meet net-zero targets is wise, or that sacrificing economic growth for climate goals makes sense.
However, while we may agree that the benefits of tackling climate change do not outweigh the disastrous consequences of “degrowth” — to borrow a flagship term of the Green Party — my conclusions are entirely distinct from dismissing climate science altogether.
For now, public trust in climate science remains strong. Polling reported by Sky News shows confidence at an all-time high, but that could easily change. Once lost, confidence in scientific institutions is hard to rebuild.
Therefore, the leaders that attended COP30 have one simple mission. It is not just to advance climate agreements but to defend the integrity of science itself. They must realise that dismissing science wholesale is misleading people — it lulls them into believing all is well when it may not be. In doing so, it denies them the dignity of informed judgment. To disregard the dangers of climate change is one thing; to do so without understanding them is quite another.
The lesson is clear: conservatism without respect for science is not prudence, it is lab-coat populism.
As Adam Smith recounted, “science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.” True conservatives should know this instinctively. In 2024, the right experienced its greatest swing in popularity since the end of the cold war. If we wish to continue to be taken seriously, then we must stop sneering at evidence and start thinking like rational adults.
