Climate world absorbs a reality they’d hoped to avoid: Trump is back

Their worst nightmare is now a burning reality. 

Climate diplomats and top-ranking activists on Wednesday struggled to project calm as it became inevitable: Donald Trump is returning to the White House.

Trump — a man who has ridiculed climate concerns, promised to rip up U.S. participation in the Paris climate accord and vowed to extract fossil fuels without limit — will, once again, be a major determinant of whether the world slows climate change fast enough.

The morning of his victory, however, officials and climate campaigners talked down Trump’s likely impact on plans to slow greenhouse gas emissions, hoping to calm nervous clean technology markets and present the transition as a fait accompli.

“Those investing in clean energy are already enjoying huge wins in terms of jobs and wealth, and cheaper, more secure energy. This is because the global energy transition is inevitable and gathering pace, making it among the greatest economic opportunities of our age,” said United Nations climate chief Simon Stiell.

The challenge is that the world isn’t moving quickly enough to prevent dangerous global warming, and any slowdown from the world’s second-largest emitter — itself a major driver of the global shift to clean energy — is bound to throw a wrench into global climate efforts.

Trump hinted at what was coming in his victory speech early Wednesday morning, touting America’s abundant supplies of “liquid gold.” Addressing Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the environmental lawyer who appears likely to bring his unorthodox views on healthcare to the heart of a Trump administration, Trump said: “Bobby, leave the oil to me.”

Others rushed to convince markets that the smart money was still on the clean energy transition, highlighting that advancements in green technology over the past decade had made fossil fuels increasingly uncompetitive.

“Standing with oil and gas is the same as falling behind in a fast-moving world,” said Christiana Figueres, who served as the United Nations climate chief between 2010 and 2016.

Governments around the world, meanwhile, searched for ways to express confidence.

“We’ve heard from the U.N. that [Secretary-General António] Guterres is trying to bring some leaders from the Global South and the Global North together for a statement — just to say that we’re not wobbling,” said a senior European diplomat who negotiates at the UN climate talks. 

A second European climate official confirmed that talks were ongoing among governments on issuing a collective response in the days ahead. Both officials were granted anonymity to speak about sensitive diplomacy. 

Initial market movements in Europe on Wednesday morning, however, saw a rout in renewable energy companies over concerns that Trump may block them from the U.S. market with tariffs, and that he could eviscerate Biden-era green subsidies.

German Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck told reporters on Wednesday that the U.S. and EU were “partners and allies. It’s important on this day to wake up to the fact that we benefit and win when we work together and that we hurt each other when we do not. We will all only stand to lose if there is less cooperation.”

It’s on Europe

Trump’s victory throws much of the responsibility for pushing the world forward on climate efforts onto European countries, which are at the forefront of cutting emissions and providing climate finance. In some EU capitals there is recognition that engagement with China, the world’s largest emitter, will now fall to them.

“If you look at the three biggest emitters both historically and currently, that’s China, the U.S. and Europe. Those three need to hold each other’s hands. And if one of the three is wobbling or uncertain, the other two need to hold fast,” said the senior European climate negotiator.

“We don’t know what Trump’s going to do,” the diplomat added, “so for now, we’re going to keep calm and carry on.”

If the 2016 U.S. presidential election caught the world’s climate advocates by surprise, Trump’s second ascent to the White House could hardly have been more dreaded. 

In the U.S., green groups and Biden administration officials have been working to secure as much of the domestic agenda and funding for clean energy as possible. Abroad, however, most diplomats and advocates had one plan for this fateful day: hope that Kamala Harris wins.

“Hope is not a strategy,” said Robert Orr, dean of the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland and an advisor on climate change to U.N. Secretary-General Guterres. “Stitching together a leadership coalition that can rise to the moment is the name of the game.”

Trumpian timing 

The election results come as some 100 world leaders are expected to attend next week’s COP29 climate talks, the annual U.N. summit that will now serve as a key first test of the rest of the world’s constancy.

“I expect countries, including China, to reaffirm their commitment to the Paris Agreement at the start of COP29,” said Li Shuo, director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute. “Unlike 2016, the global community is prepared for this. I am confident we will weather ... the immediate impact, but I am worried about the long-term impact of this election.”

The COP gatherings bring countries together to pledge greater action to combat climate change and to deliver the money that requires. But many of the world’s most powerful leaders are expected to opt out this year, including U.S. President Joe Biden.

Trump, who yanked the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement in his first term, has pledged to do so again — and perhaps even to withdraw from the underlying U.N. convention, a prospect that could upset upcoming negotiations in Azerbaijan over how to drum up trillions of dollars in climate aid over the next decade.

“It’s a huge threat,” said Michai Robertson, senior finance adviser to a coalition of small island nations known as AOSIS. 

Less action from the world’s biggest economy — and its largest polluter since the industrial era — means everyone else will have to do more to fill the gap.

And while the world has changed since Trump’s first term, countries in Europe don’t have the political or fiscal might to fill an America-sized hole in global climate efforts.

As to what a Trump presidency would mean for actual global greenhouse gas emissions, scientists said that was too early to predict, as it depends not only on what Trump actually does in office, but also on how other nations and corporations respond.

It’s “anyone’s guess what will happen,” said Glen Peters, a senior researcher at the Oslo-based Center for International Climate Research. “And that is perhaps the most concerning thing.”

That reality left some activists unable to stomach the sanguine messaging of their peers. Speaking to Germany’s ZEIT newspaper, climate activist Luisa Neubauer shared a bald assessment. 

“It's going to suck,” she said.