1 week Ago By Firstpost
The simmering speculations on the impact of Donald Trump’s return to White House are driving the tone and tenor of the ongoing 2024 annual summit of the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) or the 29th Conference of Parties (COP29) at Baku, Azerbaijan. His return not only threatens to disrupt the COP29 but derail overall global initiatives to attenuate the climate crisis becoming irreversible. It is true that the United States has always been the most influential actor in ensuring outcomes at these annual COPs.
But this year the same US threatens to emerge as its most formidable disruptor in building consensus. Designate-president Donald Trump calls the climate crisis nothing but a hoax and speculations on what it implies has ignited anxieties as Baku hosts these two-weeks’ of deliberations amongst more than 70,000 delegates from over 200 nations. To begin with, let’s understand what makes the return of Donald Trump to White House capable of holding the rest of the world hostage to his whims? This is because the US has been an inordinately largest contributor to the post-industrial accumulation of greenhouse gases and resultant global warming.
Plus, today, the same US also happens to be the world’s most powerful nations, advanced hub and world’s largest economy — accounting almost for a quarter of global GDP. All this makes any US disengagement from the UNFCCC disastrous for our shared future. During his election campaign, Trump has repeatedly reiterated his commitment to disassociate the US from the UNFCCC.
Not just that. Trump has also been vocal about maximising the already record high fossil fuel production of the US. The despondency at the start of the COP29 can be gauged from the fact that the national leaders from all major nations — United States, China, France, Germany, India etc.
— are not even attending Baku COP29. Trump’s return to White House is also expected to reignite his trade, technology, tariff wars with China which has since overtaken the US to become the world’s largest polluter nation. Together the US and China today account for half of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions.
The spectre of Trump linking climate to his tariff wars, therefore, saw China disrupting and delaying the adoption of agenda at the opening of COP29 by several hours, blocking it by asking for inclusion of discussion on climate related trade-barriers. Beijing believes Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), proposed by the US during last COP28 at Dubai, as violative of several other trade related international regulations. Trump’s election speeches have already seen him threatening to slap 60 per cent tariffs on imports from China.
And, given that he criticises China for being the world’s largest polluter, Trump is bound to invoke CBAM for slapping additional tariffs upon Beijing. However, China is not the only nation that John Podesta, President Biden’s climate envoy, has to reassure about the implications of Trump’s return to White House from January 2025. On the opening day itself, such concerns saw Podesta urging nations to keep faith in the US continuing to combat global warming saying the return of Trump to White House can slow, not stop, US efforts in transitioning from fossil fuels.
Admitting the reality of Trumpian headwinds on climate mitigation he prophesied : “...
our fight for a cleaner, safer planet.. is bigger than one election, one political cycle in one country.
” Podesta also alludes to the strong foundations laid by the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022. This provides billions of dollars of subsidies for clean energy which will continue to attract investments into wind, solar and other green technologies. Similarly, several US State governments — that enjoy extraordinary autonomy from the federal government in Washington DC — may continue with their regulations encouraging emission cuts and other mitigation and/or adaptation initiatives to redress the climate crisis.
This argument is not without merit. But, does this mean that fears about Trump’s impact on climate debates have been exaggerated? Remember that during his first term as President, Donald Trump walked out of the Paris Climate Agreement, Trans-Pacific Partnership, Iran Nuclear Deal, UN Economic and Social Council and UN Human Rights Council. He had even threatened to leave the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation that undergirds the US global leadership.
Conversely, Trump has not implemented everything that he has propagated especially during his election speeches. Trump had won his first term riding on the wave of making a border wall with Mexico that was to be paid for by Mexico! Moreover, even if Trump has pledged to rescind Biden’s IRA and this may be possible as he now enjoys unprecedented Republican majority in both houses of US Congress yet, several of these Republican lawmakers, whose districts have been beneficiaries of IRA linked investments, may not be willing for any such unpopular reversal. In fact, as he starts his second term from 20th January next year, Trump will have more immediate issues seeking his attention.
He has to first fix his team and make a large number of other appointments, then, as he promised, he has to end ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza. He will also be focusing on his major adversaries (like China and Russia) as also allies who are bracing to deal with his unpredictable (read unreliable) behaviour. Most world leaders have shown interest to meet him at the earliest possible, even as designate-president of the US.
Climate crisis by comparison seems far-in-future in the making. If anything, these Trump related anxieties at the COP29, are sure making wars in Ukraine and Gaza added issues causing disruptions and disjunctions in building consensus among varying agendas and ideas of politicians, advisors, officials, activists and corporate leaders at this largest UN gathering of its kind. And then of course there are real issues —doomsday predictions of climate scientists — that must be addressed on an urgent basis.
The United Nations has already declared year 2023 to be the hottest one in history, recording a 1.54 degree Celsius rise compared to the 19th century pre-industrial recorded temperatures. The year 2023 has already breached the 1.
5 Celsius threshold that Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) reports had first prescribed. Resultant flooding in coastal Spain, North Carolina of the US and across Africa as also droughts in Mexico, South America, and western US plus wildfires in North America and Europe are too glaring to ignore. By most estimates, the year 2024 is expected to surpass records of 2023 and cause greater disruptions in our lives.
Indeed, scientists have already shifted the goalpost from 1.5 Celsius rise to 2 Celsius by year 2100 though even that prospect remains uncertain. Increasing indices are showing multiple aspects of climate change becoming irreversible but the visible part of severe disruptions forms only tip of the iceberg and its imperceptible impact has remained unappreciated.
As regards Baku COP29, it is soon already bracing for a likelihood of failing to clinch any substantial outcomes and is already looking at exploring its success in peripheral themes like climate finance or on even minor issues like an agreement on carbon credit quality standards of a UN-backed arrangements that will allow polluters, starting sometime next year, to buy carbon credits for their climate initiatives. The author is professor of International Relations at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author.
They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views..
