‘A colossal own goal’: Trump’s exit from global climate treaties will have little effect outside US | Climate crisis

Donald Trump’s latest assault on climate action comes amid soaring temperatures, rising sea levels, still-rising greenhouse gas emissions, rising costs from extreme weather, and the danger of triggering “tipping points” that will lead to catastrophic and irreversible changes to the world’s climate system.

The US president’s decision to withdraw from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s leading body of climate scientists, will not change any of these scientific facts.

Nor will it do much to change the economic reality that moving towards a low-carbon world is an engine of growth for many countries, at least in the short term. Global investment in low-carbon energy now outpaces investment in fossil fuels by two orders of magnitude. Taking over Venezuela’s small oil industry will not make a noticeable difference.

U.N. climate chief Simon Stiell said U.S. citizens and companies would bear the impact. “This is a massive own goal that will leave the United States less secure and less prosperous,” he said. “As climate-induced disasters hit American crops, businesses, and infrastructure harder each year, and as oil, coal, and gas surges lead to more conflict, regional instability, and forced migration, as renewables remain cheaper than fossil fuels, this will mean less affordable energy, food, transportation, and insurance for American households and businesses.”

Trump’s actions were hardly unexpected: Withdrawing from the Paris agreement, of which the UNFCCC is the main treaty, was one of his second-term priorities from his first day. Withdrawing from the UNFCCC would mean that the US would no longer have a seat at the annual “party conference” (Police) meetings, and withdrawing from the IPCC would mean that the US would no longer have a veto over the “summary for policymakers” that accompanies its seven annual reports.

From other countries, the experience is familiar. For much of the last 30 years, the rest of the world had to insist on climate action in the face of US intransigence: the 1997 Kyoto protocol was blocked from entering into force until 2004 by the US Senate’s failure to ratify it; Under George W. Bush, the United States attended but often obstructed annual Police meetings; and during Trump’s first term, withdrawing from the Paris agreement failed to provoke others to do the same.

Mohamed Adow, director of the think tank Power Shift Africa, predicts that countries will take a similar attitude this year and continue their way without the USA. “The climate movement is bigger than any one country,” he said. “African countries and the global south will continue to press for climate justice, demand that wealthy polluters fulfill their historic responsibilities, and build the clean energy future our people deserve.”

As the political side of climate action struggles to attract high-level attention in a world beset by conflict, the economics of a low-carbon transition have taken on a life of their own. This may be the point where Trump’s actions increasingly look like “a self-inflicted wound,” in the words of former secretary of state John Kerry.

Investments in low-carbon forms of energy now exceed $2 trillion a year, dwarfing the $1 trillion spent on fossil fuels. Renewable energy alone grew by 15% last year, accounting for more than 90% of all new energy generation capacity. Electric vehicles now account for nearly a fifth of new cars sold worldwide. Low-carbon energy accounts for more than half of China and India’s manufacturing capacity, and China’s exports of low-carbon goods and services exceeded $20 billion in a single month last year.

China looks set to remain committed to its increasingly vibrant low-carbon economy, according to Li Shuo, director of the China Climate Center at the Asian Social Policy Institute. “This trade dynamism is increasingly happening between China and the global south,” he said. “These economic forces provide a more meaningful counter to Trump.” [than geopolitics].”

Under Trump, the United States risks being left on the sidelines, a position Kerry has called “a gift to China.” Economist Nicholas Stern said: “Economy [low-carbon] The transition looks more attractive than ever. Every time we look at science it seems more worrying, and every time we look at technology it seems more encouraging. In an increasingly insecure world, countries and industries will seek independence from fossil fuels and the huge volatility that comes with this dependence. In a world of slow growth, countries and industries will seek new opportunities. These will be in the technologies of the 21st century, not the 19th and 20th centuries. centuries.”

However, he noted that although Trump cannot change the economic direction of travel, he may make some investors uneasy about margins. “Any movement that slows down the speed is not helpful,” he said.

Whether Trump can unilaterally withdraw the United States from a treaty that the Senate voted 92-0 to approve in 1992 is a question that has divided legal experts, even though in practice America has walled itself off from the rest of the world, independent of regular processes.

Trump said in his presidential memo that the exit means “ceasing participation in or funding of these organizations to the extent permitted by law.” Last year, for the first time, there was no official US delegation at the annual UN climate summit in Brazil; This will now become the norm.

Likewise, troubling legal questions remain about what might happen if a future president tries to reengage the world on the climate crisis. If it takes two-thirds of the bitterly divided Senate to rejoin the climate agreement, America’s absence could become permanent. Trump’s legacy, both in terms of U.S. involvement in climate negotiations and the impact of the climate crisis on billions of people around the world, will not be resolved long after he retreats to Mar-a-Lago for more golf.

Meanwhile, people living in the United States will face the effects of the climate crisis more and more frequently. Wildfires in California last January forced the evacuation of more than 200,000 people. Farmers are struggling with pests, drought and floods. Homes in some areas are becoming uninsurable and extreme weather is costing the US dearly at least 115 billion dollars last year.

Its effects will be felt even by the president. Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, former deputy chairman of the IPCC, said: “Palm Beach, Florida, where Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence is located, is among the areas most vulnerable to sea level rise due to global warming. The United States is not immune to this problem.”