Climate campaigners have reacted with dismay to Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election, which will have significant implications for the fight against dangerous global warming.
But experts suggest the switch to a low-carbon economy will continue, with the US at risk of losing out if it backs away from clean tech, and urged other countries to step up action to tackle the climate crisis.
Mr Trump’s win comes just days before countries meet in Baku, Azerbaijan, for the latest round of UN climate talks, an issue over which Mr Trump has repeatedly dismissed concerns.
Domestically, Mr Trump is expected to roll back parts of the Inflation Reduction Act, the signature climate legislation of Joe Biden’s presidency, such as incentives for electric vehicles, and has signalled his support for more fossil fuel extraction.
The world’s most powerful climate denier is back in the White House.
— Greenpeace UK (@GreenpeaceUK) November 6, 2024
And on the global stage, he has pledged to pull out of the Paris Agreement, the international deal secured in 2015 in France to limit rising temperatures, for the second time.
Withdrawing from the treaty will not only slow climate action in the US but send a clear signal to other countries that the world’s second biggest polluter after China will be taking a very different approach from the leading role on climate change it tried to adopt under Mr Biden.
Areeba Hamid, joint executive director at Greenpeace UK, said: “The return of the world’s most powerful climate denier to the White House will be met with trepidation around the world.”
But she said the damage could be contained if the “grown-ups in the room speak up”.
“With crucial international climate talks next week, (Prime Minister Sir) Keir Starmer must prove that he is willing to do so by standing up to the fossil fuel giants and taking the action needed to tackle climate change, protect the most vulnerable and build a better world for future generations.”
To be clear: the US election result is a blow in the fight against the climate crisis. The window to limit warming to 1.5°C is closing—these next 4 years are critical. But let’s not despair. The Paris Agreement has proven resilient, stronger than any one country’s policies (1/10)
— Laurence Tubiana (@LaurenceTubiana) November 6, 2024
Laurence Tubiana, chief executive of the European Climate Foundation and key architect of the Paris Agreement, said: “The US election result is a setback for global climate action, but the Paris Agreement has proven resilient and is stronger than any single country’s policies.”
“There is powerful economic momentum behind the global transition, which the US has led and gained from, but now risks forfeiting,” she added, urging Europe to lead the way.
And she said: “The devastating toll of recent hurricanes was a grim reminder that all Americans are affected by worsening climate change.”
The victory comes in the wake of a growing number of devastating weather events made more extreme by global warming, currently at about 1.3C above pre-industrial levels.
Scientific analysis has found last week’s deadly floods in Valencia, Spain, and Hurricane Helene which devastated parts of the US in the run up to the election were made more likely and more intense by climate change.
The UN’s Environment Programme has warned that despite current climate efforts, the world is on track for 3.1C of warming by the end of the century, an outcome described as “catastrophic” by UN secretary general Antonio Guterres.
Countries are due to submit updated plans for cutting their emissions up to 2035 by a February deadline, just a few weeks after Mr Trump takes office.
The UN has warned of a massive effort required to curb global warming to 1.5C, the threshold beyond which increasingly dangerous climate impacts are expected to be felt.
And next week’s talks are expected to focus heavily on finance for poorer countries to move to a clean economy, protect carbon-storing natural habitats and cope with the already unavoidable impacts of drought, heatwaves, storms, floods, rising seas and collapse of natural systems being wrought by climate change.
With Mr Trump heading to the White House, it seems unlikely the US will be playing a role in emissions reductions or the finance needed to fight climate change, at least for the next four years, but experts suggested it would not stop the shift to clean energy.
Christiana Figueres, who was UN climate chief between 2010 and 2016, said: “The result from this election will be seen as a major blow to global climate action, but it cannot and will not halt the changes under way to decarbonise the economy and meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.”
And she added: “Clean energy technologies will continue to outcompete fossil fuels, not just because they are healthier, faster, cleaner and more abundant, but because they undercut fossil fuels where they are at their weakest: their unsolvable volatility and inefficiency.”
Dan Lashof, US director at World Resources Institute, said the next Trump presidency would “stall” national efforts on climate change, but both Democratic and Republican US states were seeing the benefits of renewables and battery manufacturing, and city, state and private sector leaders would step into the breach.
He said global support for climate action had grown significantly since 2016 when Mr Trump was first elected, adding: “If Donald Trump pulls out of the Paris Agreement again, it would simply diminish the United States’ influence and give other countries a leg up in the booming clean energy economy.”
