Dear Climate Campaigners. Can you spare some change?

I get it.

For most of the 21st century climate change has been the biggest risk to peace ,prosperity and yes, the planet.

That’s not so clear cut these days - and too many people are still acting like somehow if we engage the public more on issues around climate change we’ll convince them not to vote for authoritarian populists.

This is a case of getting your priorities wrong.

The green transition is underway. There’s trillions of dollars flowing into it - most of which come from the markets.

The great democratic erosion is underway too and so far we’re - erm - pouring barely anything into it, partly because politics seems to be a dirty (and taxable) word in philanthropy.

So instead we’re still pouring millions of dollars and pounds of money earmarked for improving the future into things like ‘climate change narratives’.

I worked in International Development for a decade.

I’ve seen what happens when people who work in a well-meaning sector with a moral mission decide that declining public support for their work is based on a collective misunderstanding rather than a rational reaction to a changing world.

If you work on a single issue - like climate, migration, gender or any number of ‘progressive’ causes then you have hopefully noticed by now that there’s a ceiling to how much support we can build through single issues.

Not only that but if open pluralist politics is edged out by something more closed and corporate then we’re going to be mounting a rearguard action that makes the ROI on that Guardian op-ed look somewhat minimal.

It’s by no means over but the race against climate change now has market tailwinds - the battle for the future of democracy is facing strong headwinds.

Disinformation and polarisation are monetised by algorithms, mass-market truth-seeking journalism can’t find a sustainable business model and surveillance capitalism where ever increasing amounts of our data are extracted to line the pockets of companies historically unparalleled in their power - is thriving.

If we don’t put a bigger percentage of the billions we’re giving to climate into defending democracy then right now we’re building the future on sand.