EVERYWHERE, ALARM BELLS are sounding on the climate crisis. Donald Trump isn’t listening.
After polling stations closed on Tuesday night and projected results poured in, Donald Trump emerged as the winner of the 2024 US presidential election, securing enough votes in enough states to defeat US Vice President and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.
His victory has sparked concerns about how his return to the White House will impact national and international progress on trying to combat climate change, a global emergency.
Here’s what a Trump presidency will mean for the climate crisis and efforts to fight it.
During the campaign, Trump’s policies on climate and energy centred around scaling up fossil fuel energy production and rolling back support for renewable energy.
“Make America the dominant energy producer in the world, by far!” is the fourth item on Trump’s list of ’20 core promises’ made during his campaign.
The type of energy he’s talking about is powered by oil and gas.
“We will DRILL, BABY, DRILL,” the 16-page document laying out his platform states at one point.
It continues: “We will become Energy Independent, and even Dominant again. The United States has more liquid gold under our feet than any other Nation, and it’s not even close. The Republican Party will harness that potential to power our future.”
The document pledges to end any restrictions on the use of oil, gas or coal.
It doesn’t once explicitly mention climate, nature, or the environment.
Trump has also promised to end federal policies that incentivise the sale of electric vehicles, which are seen as a key and relatively low-effort way to help to reduce emissions from the transport sector.
In a conversation with Elon Musk broadcast on Twitter/X during the summer where the two made what a columnist in The Guardian described later as “discursive, often fact-free assertions” about climate change – such as Trump’s suggestion that sea level rise wouldn’t be so bad as it would create more oceanfront properties.
Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Simon Stiell has tried to calm down investors made anxious by the outcome of the election, saying that those investing in clean energy are already enjoying “huge wins” in terms of jobs, wealth, and cheaper, more secure energy supply.
Jeff Ordower, the North America director of environmental organisation 350.org, said: “The next Trump administration will be isolationist and dangerous to climate. But in that darkness, there is some hope that in diminished US power, other nations can step up, and states like California can follow.”
The fight for climate action will indeed continue, both in other countries and in pockets of America where progress can be made at state or local levels with more Democratic leaderships.
However, on the global stage, Trump wants to pull the US out of the most significant international deal on climate action.
In 2017, during the first year of his presidency, Trump pulled the US out of the Paris Agreement.
The Paris Agreement is an international deal that was forged by countries in 2015 to try to limit temperature rise in order to prevent climate catastrophe. It’s like a rulebook for how governments take climate action – the kind of plans they need to make, how, and by when.
The US is one of the world’s biggest emitters. America pumping carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere unchecked is bad news for the world as a whole, especially the vulnerable countries that will suffer the consequences the most (despite contributing to the problem the least).
In addition to its own direct impact on climate, as a major geopolitical player on the world stage, the US holds significant sway over other countries and how issues are dealt with internationally.
It pulling out from the Paris Agreement would would mark a loss of what could, if its diplomatic and financial resources were being put to appropriate use, be a global force for good.
As president, Trump stopped the US’s implementation of its nationally determined contribution (NDC), the emissions reductions plans each country makes for itself under the terms of the Paris Agreement.
The Biden administration rejoined the Agreement but Trump is now expected to pull out from it once again.
Trump’s reasoning for withdrawing at the time was that “as President, I can put no other consideration before the wellbeing of American citizens”.
He claimed that the Paris Agreement was “simply the latest example of Washington entering into an agreement that disadvantages the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries, leaving American workers — who I love — and taxpayers to absorb the cost in terms of lost jobs, lower wages, shuttered factories, and vastly diminished economic production”.
Something he didn’t mention, however, was the threats posed to Americans by the climate crisis itself.
In the last five years alone, the US has seen an array of extreme weather events that were made more likely or more destructive due to climate change.
Hurricane Milton in October 2024, which brought devastation to Florida.
Hurricane Helene in September 2024, which killed at least 227 people and knocked off power to two million in southeastern states.
Extreme heat in summer 2024 that affected the US and neighbouring Mexico.
‘Exceptionally extreme’ fire-weather conditions leading to wildfires in Canada in May and June 2023 that swept hazardous air quality to the US, especially New York and other parts of the northeast and midwest.
Heatwaves across the northern hemisphere in July 2023 that saw multiple deaths confirmed in the US due to the heat.
Extreme heat in the US’s Pacific northwest region in June 2021.
Tropical Storm Imelda in September 2019 that brought torrential rain to Texas, with five people dying due to floods and more than one thousand requiring rescues.
All have been scientifically linked to climate change through a type of research known as event attribution studies. All are the types of events that will continue to worsen if climate changes goes unabated.
In Ireland, Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman had spoken out against Trump in the days prior to the election.
As the results were called, he said he “acknowledged” the vote of the American people for Trump and that democracy means respecting the outcome of elections.
But he cautioned that the world “cannot let this result undermine the significant progress that is being made in many countries such as Ireland to tackle the devastating impact of climate change”.
In opposition, Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns similarly warned that Trump’s agenda includes “rolling back climate action”.
Several climate activist organisations have expressed deep worry and frustration at Trump’s election, detailing how it spells a step back on progress in a country that is already a massive contributor to greenhouse gas emissions globally.
Just Stop Oil, known for its public demonstrations designed to draw attention to its campaign to end oil and gas exploitation, sprayed orange paint on an external wall of the American embassy in London on Wednesday morning.
“Trump’s win puts the lives of ordinary people at risk, everywhere. Political systems that can be bought by big oil have no value as we face the biggest challenge of our time,” Just Stop Oil said.
🧯 US EMBASSY PAINTED ORANGE AS WE REJECT FASCISM
— Just Stop Oil (@JustStop_Oil) November 6, 2024
This morning the world wakes to find it has slipped further into fascism as well as climate breakdown. Trump's win puts the lives of ordinary people at risk, everywhere.
Political systems that can be bought by big oil have no… pic.twitter.com/5OuFgH1B70
Norway-based environmental foundation Bellona flagged that states led by Democrats will need to continue to take climate action – California, for instance, which has a significant economy in its own right and can influence change in the necessary direction.
However, work done by individual states still won’t be a replacement for the US acting as a leader in climate negotiations on the global stage, it said.
Under Trump, the US “will no longer be a driving force globally to reach the 1.5 degree target”, Bellona said, detailing that the election outcome means the European Union must do even more to push the world in the right direction on climate.
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