This article considers what is necessary politically to respond to the empirical challenge of climate change and to the present calls of climate science (a carbon-neutral world by 2050). Its basic argument is that, among an array of national and international actors, it remains the state that can drive a successful politics of climate change. Without the heavy-lifting of the state and the state’s ability as a national entity to motivate behavioural change, neither the daunting scale nor imminent time-horizon of climate mitigation and adaptation is possible. The article shows how this specific argument, far from pitching anew nationalism against internationalism, can bring the two presently polarized movements together. The article then suggests that if these arguments are essentially valid, the discipline of International Relations needs to focus much more on the climate challenge, re-engage with its traditions of thought on the state and help harbour a specific disposition or mindset in the research and teaching of the discipline for the next decades: a fierce optimism.

中文翻译：

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气候科学、气候变化政治和 IR 的未来

本文考虑了在政治上应对气候变化的经验挑战和当前气候科学（到 2050 年实现碳中和）的呼吁所必需的措施。它的基本论点是，在众多国家和国际行动者中，它仍然是能够成功推动气候变化政治的国家。如果没有国家的重任和国家作为一个国家实体推动行为改变的能力，气候减缓和适应的规模和紧迫的时间范围都不可能实现。这篇文章展示了这种具体的论点，远非反对国际主义的新民族主义，而是如何将目前两极分化的两种运动结合在一起。文章然后建议，如果这些论点本质上是有效的，