Trump stranglehold adds to growing doubts at climate talks

The election of Donald Trump — and his vow to once again undertake a U.S. retreat from international climate diplomacy — poses a decisive threat to the fight against global warming, as the window for meaningful action closes.

Trump’s win comes just days before representatives from nearly 200 nations gather in Azerbaijan for COP29, the annual United Nations climate summit. That two-week meeting will start Monday in the shadow of a Republican president-elect who has promised to lead another withdrawal from the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement.

A fresh exodus by the world’s largest economy and second-biggest emitter, reprising a move made during Trump’s first term, could have longer-lasting repercussions this time. Trump is now in position to undermine the already-eroding faith in the climate cooperation that has shaped the past decade. His return promises to destabilize the delicate diplomacy that has galvanized worldwide efforts to slash planet-warming pollution and deploy zero-emission power. Without American engagement, efforts to cut emissions could stall in the decade ahead that’s seen as crucial for keeping Earth’s rising temperatures in check.

Trump’s victory is “an alarming escalation of climate risk for the world’s most vulnerable communities,” said Harjeet Singh, a climate activist for the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative. “By stepping back from climate commitments, Trump’s actions threaten to unravel trust in a global system already strained by the indifference and inaction of wealthy nations.”

Diplomats are already wrestling with the consequences. Although Trump won’t be sworn in for two months, his election turns the U.S. delegation to COP29 into lame ducks with diminished credibility and less leverage. It will severely complicate negotiations over how much public finance rich countries can deliver to developing nations on the front lines of climate change, a key aim of discussions at this year’s summit. It’s also likely to constrain countries’ ambitions in setting new carbon-cutting pledges due next February.

COP29 Daily Reports: Sign up for the Green Daily newsletter for comprehensive coverage of the climate summit right in your inbox.

Beyond the fallout at COP29, there could be far more sweeping consequences. Another U.S. retreat from climate cooperation has the potential to obliterate any lingering hope of keeping the world’s temperature rise below 1.5C, a critical goal enshrined in the Paris Agreement.

“We need dramatically raised global ambition to have any chance of staying below 2 — much less 1.5 — degrees,” said Alden Meyer, a senior adviser with the climate change think tank E3G. The U.S. reversal has “a real world impact,” he said.

The U.S. has long been viewed as both an unreliable and necessary partner in annual climate talks. The country failed to ratify the Kyoto Protocol that underpins the negotiations more than two decades ago, and it has partially reneged on its past pledge to steer billions of dollars to a U.N. climate fund.

Back in 2017, this lack of dependability culminated in then-President Trump’s announcement that he was pulling out of the Paris Agreement. Even though other countries didn’t follow the U.S. withdrawal and President Joe Biden was able to rejoin the agreement in 2021, the exit still sidelined a country that’s been essential to driving momentum on climate action. The U.S. is the largest shareholder of the World Bank, a key institution for financing the energy transition, and American negotiations with China have helped forge bilateral consensus, spur action in Beijing and pave the way for watershed global commitments, including a 2023 agreement to transition away from fossil fuels.

The U.S. also has wielded its diplomatic might — and leveraged its existing relationships with other nations — to secure bigger international climate agreements and deeper emission-cutting pledges. It’s “a pretty powerful diplomacy machine,” said Jake Schmidt, senior strategic director of international climate at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “Having the U.S. not driving that diplomacy will definitely hurt the push to get more finance and more action.”

Other countries will be pressured to step in and fill the void, Schmidt said, but it’s not clear that any can summon the same diplomatic heft. These effects will be on full display at the COP29 summit next week, where U.S. negotiators will be representatives of the outgoing Biden administration. Even before Trump’s win, the talks in Azerbaijan appeared fraught with rifts over who should be contributing to the pools of climate finance needed to help developing nations. There’s also simmering distrust over rich nation’s previous failures to deliver on multi-billion-dollar financial commitments.

European countries have stepped in to offset lackluster contributions from the U.S. in the past, and many diplomats were already discounting the prospect of additional American commitments at COP29 even before the election. But the Trump win further shrinks the likely U.S. payouts, according to COP veterans, and that could reduce the amount other nations may be willing to commit.

Climate finance negotiations in Azerbaijan “will be the earliest test of the resilience of the climate regime,” said Li Shuo, director of the Asia Society Policy Institute.

Trump’s ascension could shift the balance of power to other countries and blocs, strengthening the role for the European Union in landing a deal. It could also intensify pressure on the EU to reach an agreement with China, which is being pressured to join the group of wealthy nations contributing to annual climate finance targets.

“If you are the EU” faced with the Trump victory, “you understand we have one less traditional donor,” Li said. “You could be more interested in getting China” into the fold.

Still, the EU itself is entering this year’s negotiations on the backfoot, with several of its top leaders skipping the conference to deal with political issues at home. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has canceled his trip to Baku after calling a snap election, according to a person familiar with his plans, while European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and French President Emmanuel Macron will also be absent.

Some countries are expected to unite in a joint statement committing to climate action in the wake of the U.S. election, mirroring their response when Trump’s 2016 win unsettled U.N. talks in Morocco.

Environmentalists, government leaders and former negotiators have spent months plotting ways to Trump-proof global cooperation. That kind of coordination didn’t happen last time, when Trump’s first win caught so many global leaders by surprise.

These efforts now include work by American cities and states to step up their own climate action and collaborate with foreign partners. State-level leaders are set to meet with Chinese officials in Azerbaijan. A joint statement on Wednesday from America Is All In coalition, the U.S. Climate Alliance and Climate Mayors promised that local governments, tribal nations and businesses in the U.S. “will not waver in our commitment to confronting the climate crisis, protecting our progress and relentlessly pressing forward.”

Actions taken in the private sector and at lower levels of government can help fill some of the U.S. emission-cutting gap, but it’s no substitute for a robust federal government push. Under the Paris Agreement, the U.S. had pledged to slash its greenhouse gas emissions at least 50% by 2030 from 2005 levels. Even with existing federal policies—including regulations Trump has already vowed to terminate once in the White House—the U.S. still needed to do more to fulfill its 2030 commitment, according to projections from the research firm Rhodium Group.

Biden administration officials have been developing a new Paris Agreement pledge for cutting emissions—known as a nationally determined contribution—before a deadline for delivery in early next February. Advocates and academics have encouraged the U.S. to embrace at least a 65% reduction by 2035. The U.S. may still unveil its commitment this year, but the pledge would be based on some planned and existing policies that would not survive Trump. (A White House spokesman did not respond to requests for comment on the matter.)

Environmentalists are now worried that other countries may respond to a U.S. retreat by dialing back their own carbon-cutting promises. The effects could be most pronounced for laggard nations and big fossil fuel producers. It may be a long shot, but some activists also see this as an opportunity to prove climate action doesn’t hinge on any single nation. As Meyer put it: “Our hope is that it creates a dynamic where the rest of the world steps up and decides they want a success in Baku.”

-------

With assistance from John Ainger.