A second term for Donald Trump as the President of the United States is the last thing we need in the middle of an ongoing climate crisis. During his 2024 campaign trail, he has repeatedly described climate change as ‘one of the greatest scams of all time’ and called on Americans to ‘drill, baby, drill’ for more oil and gas.
He has also spoken about his intentions to dismantle energy and environmental policies and, quite possibly, pull the US out of the Paris Agreement once again, as he did previously in 2017.
This is likely to be a disaster for global efforts to rein in the climate crisis, given that the US remains the world’s biggest historical greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter and the second-highest emitter in the present day.
So what can we expect this time around and what can be done?
The biggest worry on the domestic front is that Trump will undo several environmental regulations that have been designed to shift the American economy towards decarbonisation.
There are concerns about his plans to build more coal and gas-fired power plants with deregulated emission limits, increase the domestic oil production and export of liquefied natural gas (LNG), undo regulations that promote electric vehicles sales and approve drilling on public land and waters (which was curtailed under the incumbent President Joe Biden).
Another potential flashpoint will be the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a federal US law that has allocated approximately US $370 billion towards clean energy and climate action, aiming to reduce the country’s emissions by 40 per cent from 2005 levels by the end of 2030.
Under the IRA, over 330 significant clean energy projects have been announced so far. Of the IRA’s US $105 billion grants allocation, almost half was already spent or committed by July 2024, with another 23 per cent or more likely to be allocated before President Biden’s term ends.
Despite this, Trump’s plan could include gutting the US Department of Energy’s Loan Program Office, which has been responsible for lending to green technologies.
Any uncommitted spending under the IRA may be rescinded by Trump, although this potentially hands the advantage to other countries to increase their investment towards innovative and competitive technologies.
He could also roll back the IRA’s clean energy tax credits, making them harder to obtain, to the benefit of fossil fuels. However, his plans to gut the IRA might see some pushback from Republicans who are witnessing the benefits of green jobs creation in their backyards, as about 60 per cent of IRA-related clean energy projects are situated in the Republican congressional districts.
On the multilateral stage, there is a high possibility that Trump moves to unplug the US from the Paris Agreement once more.
Taking a step further, he has even made it no secret that he wishes to make the US quit the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) this time around.
Climate aid from the US towards the developing world will certainly get affected and scaled down under his leadership. The amount of climate finance provided for the developing world was increasing pace during the Biden tenure and reached US $5.8 billion in 2022. This itself is not nearly in the range of quantum needed to meet developing countries’ climate needs (which is in the trillions of dollars), especially when compared to America’s historical responsibilities
Furthermore, progress on reform of the international financial architecture (IFA) is likely to be much harder to achieve without US cooperation, given how the country essentially controls the global financial system.
With the Republicans now winning a majority in the US Congress during this election, it will be incredibly difficult to pass the bills needed for IFA reforms and for approving climate finance.
Another dimension to be mindful about will be an escalation of the trade wars, as Trump’s proclivity for confrontation continues to grow stronger. This time around, he has threatened to put 60 per cent tariffs on Chinese goods, and has even called India the ‘biggest’ import tariff charger, and has vowed to reciprocate once he comes to power.
An escalating trade war may hinder the pace and costs of undertaking the urgently-needed green transition worldwide.
The 29th Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC (COP29) is scheduled from November 11-22, 2024 and the President-elect will take a couple of months before assuming the charge of his office. The New Collective Quantified Goal on climate finance, or the NCQG, will be one of the crucial points of discussion between developed and developing country parties.
Since Trump will be moving into the White House in January, next year, the Biden administration will get one last opportunity to push for effective climate action.
It could mean that the US negotiators are fearful of commitments that may not pass the Republican-leaning US Congress, or we may get one last act of service for the Global South (at least for the next four years). Other countries might be wary of an anti-climate administration stepping into the White House, but now is not the time to retreat in fear.
It will be important then, that other countries do not use Trump as an excuse to slack on their commitments, curb their climate ambitions and instead forge ahead and keep on track to meet our collective climate goals.
Multilateral processes are still the key to addressing global climate impacts, although we may see changes in who takes the lead. This is, of course, an opportunity to set anew the global discourse on decarbonisation.
“The world cannot and will not go backwards on climate action. A climate denier has been at the helm of the biggest historical polluter country just four years ago, and the world still progressed largely in the direction that climate science dictates — albeit at a very slow pace. This has to continue, and it's an even bigger case for multipolarity - other developed countries and emerging economies can lead the way to ramp up decarbonisation, because we know how high the costs of inaction are,” stated Avantika Goswami, Programme Manager, Climate Change at Centre for Science and Environment.
There are substantial reasons to worry about what comes next, for communities, livelihoods and ecologies increasingly at risk of climate disasters.
Trump will certainly be self-serving and risk destroying our collective commons in the process, but there is no time for climate inaction any longer.