The Climate Realism Initiative is a project of the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) that promotes weather-dependent energy as a strategy to combat climate change and promote American energy supremacy in international relations. ^{1 2}

The project was announced in April 2025 and has received mixed media coverage. Environmentalists have been particularly critical, claiming the initiative was a defeatist concession to the “climate-denying American right.” ³

Background

In April 2025, the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) announced its Climate Realism Initiative during a panel with several climate change and environmentalist policy activists. ⁴ Senior fellow and director of the Climate Realism Initiative Varun Sivaram published an article that month titled, “We Need a Fresh Approach to Climate Policy. It’s Time for Climate Realism” that advocated for the United States to use the ideology of “climate realism” to create policy he claims will help address climate change and protect America’s strategic interests. According to Sivaram, the climate realism doctrine calls for the United States to invest in programs meant to address potential environmental and migration-based issues caused by climate change, investing in “clean technology industries,” and making climate change a top national security priority by investing in “geoengineering” and pushing other countries like China, Brazil, and India to reduce their emissions. ²

Initiatives

The Climate Realism Initiative at the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) has three main objectives for which it conducts research and offers policy recommendations for both domestic and international lawmakers. First, the initiative seeks to navigate the geopolitics and risks of what it considers to be a “warming world.” It promotes American military and geopolitical interests by trying to find innovative solutions to natural disasters and climate patterns. Second, the Climate Realism Initiative seeks to invest more in so-called “clean technologies,” such as wind and solar power, electric vehicles, and advanced batteries. Third, the initiative seeks to avoid climate-related disasters by investing in geoengineering and leveraging American power on an international scale to pressure other countries to lower their greenhouse gas emissions. ^{5 6}

Media Coverage

Since its announcement in April 2025, the Climate Realism Initiative has received mixed media coverage. It received positive coverage in an Axios article which claimed the initiative was an “ambitious new effort to reframe the U.S. approach to climate is taking a sledgehammer to shibboleths on the left and the right.” The article contained segments of an interview with Climate Realism Initiative director Varun Sivaram who stressed that he wants the initiative to “make climate [policy] palatable to administrations of both parties.” ⁷

Other media coverage has presented the Climate Realism Initiative as a defeatist concession by centrist Democrats to a “nationalist and climate-denying American right.” An article from The New Republic and an opinion editorial from Common Dreams accuse the initiative of abandoning long-held left-of-center climate goals for the sake of reasserting American imperialism and nationalism on a global stage. Critics of the program have called it immoral and unrealistic. Left-wing critics have decried the initiative’s suggestion that the international Paris Climate Agreement goal to limit global temperature rise to two degrees Celsius is a lost cause. ^{8 3}

Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)

The Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) is an invitation-only think tank specializing in United States foreign policy and international affairs. The organization was founded in 1921 by business and civic leaders in the belief that the U.S. should embrace a global leadership role and support internationalism. Its founders sought to exert behind-the-scenes influence to encourage sustained U.S. involvement in global affairs. ^{9 10}

CFR has eight focus areas: defense and security, diplomacy and international institutions, economics, energy and environment, health, human rights, politics and government, and social issues. ¹¹ It produces books, articles, and reports and also publishes the magazine Foreign Affairs. ¹² As of January 2025, CFR’s corporate members include Airbus, Amazon, Bank of America, Blackrock, Chevron, Citi, ExxonMobil, Goldman Sachs, Google, JPMorgan Chase, MasterCard, Meta, Morgan Stanley, Nasdaq, and Visa. ¹³

Leadership

Varun Sivaram is a senior fellow for Energy and Climate and the director of the Climate Realism Initiative at the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR). He is also the founder and CEO of Emerald AI. Before joining CFR, Sivaram was chief strategy and innovation officer at Ørsted, the world’s largest producer of offshore wind energy. He previously served as chief technology officer at ReNew Power, India’s largest producer of weather-dependent energy, and as a consultant at McKinsey & Co. Sivaram served for the first two years of President Joe Biden’s administration in the White House and State Department as the managing director for clean energy and senior advisor to then-U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry. Sivaram created and led the First Movers Coalition, which President Biden designated the flagship U.S. public-private partnership on climate. Sivaram also created and coordinated the U.S.-India Climate Action and Finance Mobilization Dialogue and the U.S.-Germany Climate and Energy Partnership. Sivaram has also served in state and local government as senior advisor to the mayor of Los Angeles and to the governor of New York. ¹⁴

Sivaram has worked on the faculty of Columbia University and Georgetown University. His books include Taming the Sun: Innovations to Harness Solar Energy and Power the Planet, Energizing America: A Roadmap to Launch a National Energy Innovation Mission, and Digital Decarbonization: Promoting Digital Innovations to Advance Clean Energy Systems. Sivaram sits on the boards of the Atlantic Council, Everview Partners, and Aventurine Partners. He is a Rhodes and Truman Scholar, holds a Ph.D. in condensed matter physics from Oxford University, and undergraduate degrees in engineering physics and international relations from Stanford University. ¹⁴

Financials

The Climate Realism Initiative is a project of the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) which reported $79,154,300 in total revenue, $94,313,900 in total expenses, and $755,521,700 in total assets in 2023. ¹⁵

1. “Climate Realism.” Council on Foreign Relations. Accessed June 2, 2025. https://www.cfr.org/initiative/climate-realism
2. Sivaram, Varun. “We Need a Fresh Approach to Climate Policy. It’s Time for Climate Realism.” Council on Foreign Relations. April 7, 2025. Accessed June 2, 2025. https://www.cfr.org/article/we-need-fresh-approach-climate-policy-its-time-climate-realism
3. Fraser, Catherine. “The Council on Foreign Relations’ ‘Climate Realism’ Is Anything But.” Common Dreams. May 6, 2025. Accessed June 2, 2025. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/cfr-climate-realism-dangerous
4. “LinkedIn post by Joshua Freed.” LinkedIn. April 2025. Accessed June 2, 2025. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/joshuafreed_climate-realism-initiative-activity-7315443508473950208-Pd5x/
5. ^[1] “Climate Realism.” Council on Foreign Relations. Accessed June 2, 2025. https://www.cfr.org/initiative/climate-realism
6. “Facebook Post by Council on Foreign Relations.” Facebook. April 7, 2025. Accessed June 2, 2025. https://www.facebook.com/councilonforeignrelations/videos/1445952639701434/
7. Geman, Ben. “”Climate realism” stresses security, mitigation and resilience.” Axios. April 7, 2025. Accessed June 2, 2025. https://www.axios.com/2025/04/07/climate-change-realism-security
8. Aronoff, Kate. “The Bleak, Defeatist Rise of ‘Climate Realism.’” The New Republic. April 8, 2025. Accessed June 2, 2025. https://newrepublic.com/article/193698/climate-realism-degrees-immigration
9. Gavrilis, George. “The Council on Foreign Relations – A Short History.” Council on Foreign Relations 2021. Pg. V. Accessed June 2, 2025. https://www.cfr.org/sites/default/files/pdf/centennial-book.pdf.
10. “Annual Report.” Council on Foreign Relations. Accessed June 2, 2025. https://www.cfr.org/annual-report-2021.
11.  “Topics.” Council on Foreign Relations. Accessed June 2, 2024. https://www.cfr.org/topics
12. Gavrilis, George. “The Council on Foreign Relations – A Short History.” Council on Foreign Relations. 2021. Accessed June 2, 2025. https://www.cfr.org/sites/default/files/pdf/centennial-book.pdf
13. “Corporate Members.” Council on Foreign Relations. Accessed June 2, 2025. https://www.cfr.org/membership/corporate-members
14. “Varun Sivaram.” Council on Foreign Relations. Accessed June 2, 2o25. https://www.cfr.org/expert/varun-sivaram
15. “Council On Foreign Relations Inc – 2023 Federal Form 990.” ProPublica. Accessed June 2, 2025. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/131628168/202510709349301901/full