Trump’s election leads to less ambitious climate policy: ‘This is catastrophic’

The election of Donald Trump as President of the United States does not mean the end of international climate policy, experts expect. However, it will lead to delay and less desire.

In his first term, Trump withdrew from the Paris global climate agreement. It was suspected that he would do it again. Yesterday it emerged that Trump is indeed planning to do just that.

Although he will only take office in January, Trump’s influence is immediately visible. The annual climate conference begins on Monday in the Azerbaijani capital Baku. “We cannot count on the United States to implement the Paris climate agreement for at least four years,” said Pieter Pauw, a climate finance researcher at Eindhoven University of Technology. this is what is going through the negotiations.”

Countries must submit new climate plans to the United Nations climate agency by at least February. Pauw expects countries to take a hard look at their intentions after Trump’s victory. Why would a country like China do more if the United States outsourced?

Poor countries may make fewer commitments because they rely on financial support to implement their climate plans. It is now becoming more uncertain.

Climate finance is the topic of the summit in Baku. In 2009, rich countries pledged to release $100 billion annually for climate action in poor countries. This deal expires next year. Countries have argued for some time about the amount and whether more countries should contribute.

“It was already very difficult to reach some sort of agreement on this,” says Pauw, “and it will become much more difficult.” Last term, Trump cut all US climate funding. Now that is expected to happen again, other countries will have to contribute billions of dollars. This will depend on a target for additional funding Pauw: “I think the goal will now become longer and more vague.

In his first term, Trump called climate change a “hoax.” He stopped many climate policies. For example, he removed about 150 environmental regulations and the United States withdrew from the Paris Agreement.

“It is obvious that it will be a repetition of trends,” says climate expert Leo Meyer. In 2016, there were fears that the US exit would mean the end of the new Paris agreement. But it did not no other country left the agreement.In addition, some US cities and states continued to commit to ambitious climate policies independently of the federal government.

From 2021 onwards, Trump’s measures were partially reversed. President Biden immediately rejoined the Paris Agreement. Under Biden, the United States pledged to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

He also led a climate bill through Congress. This Inflation Reduction Act investing $783 billion in renewable energy, electric cars and green hydrogen, among other things.

Climate was not a prominent issue in the election campaign. Harris and Trump didn’t talk much about it and made almost no plans. When Trump himself name this was according to his first term. In this way it put the threat of climate change and sea level rise into perspective.

Trump is committed to more oil and gas production, reflected in the campaign slogan “drill, baby, drill“. He also wants the Inflation Reduction Act rolling back and cutting subsidies for electric cars. In campaign documents and interviews he announced that he would “deny” the Paris agreement again.

It remains to be seen how far Trump can and wants to go. Pauw admits that the Inflation Reduction Act it simply cannot be reversed. “This requires a majority in the Senate. And there is a lot of support now from the Republicans because most of the money goes to their states.”

Pauw believes that other countries will continue to work together, as they did between 2016 and 2020. But he does not want to put things in perspective too much. “This is catastrophic,” he says. From one inventory shows that the United States will emit 4 billion tons more CO2 by 2030 under Trump. That’s as much as Japan and the European Union emit in a year.

Experts believe that Trump’s second term will largely lead to a slowdown. “The progress of solar energy is happening much faster than we ever imagined,” said Leo Meyer. “It can slow down, but it can’t stop.”