This chapter argues that the politics of global climate change is a matter of international powerInternational power, its historical origins, present institutional contexts and dynamics. Global climate change presents a transformational crisis to the existing international systemInternational system as a system build on and around the nation-state and its domestic-international arrangements. While global climate change seemingly demands a global reaction, the politics of global climate change are governed by the attempt to keep existing power structures and relations intact. The chapter makes this argument by first putting the present transformational crisis into a broader historical international systemInternational system context: the earlier transformational crisis between Imperial and national that shaped global politics in the fifty-five-year crisis from 1890 to 1945. A qualitative discourse analysis of the decisions and actions documents of COP-1 to COP-26 then concludes that instead of some progressive path toward a global answer, the national remained and continues to remain central to all negotiations and attempted solutions. The chapter ends by questioning the continuing assumption of a global necessity/reality in the fight against global climate change and by reminding readers to put the focus on where it belongs: the politics.