The election of Donald Trump is bad news for American climate action. Trump has repeatedly denied climate change and downplayed its significance. “Drill, baby, drill” is a slogan that is perhaps more ethos than policy, but prioritizing decarbonization and renewable energy is nowhere in Trump’s agenda.
Kamala Harris, on the other hand, likely would have doubled down on the Biden administration’s climate policies – most notably the provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) that encouraged the development, production, and deployment of clean technologies in the United States.
The climate news analysis site Carbon Brief estimated in March 2024 that a Trump victory would likely add 4 billion tons of carbon to cumulative U.S. emissions by 2030, in comparison to what they envisioned would occur if Biden/Harris had won reelection. These estimates are based on aggregating modeling from different groups like the independent climate research organization Rhodium and an analysis published in Science by John Bistline and co-authors in 2023.
One big question is whether Trump follows through on his campaign promise to rescind IRA spending on clean energy and energy efficiency in communities across America. Expect a fight in Congress to repeal or preserve aspects of the IRA, which will affect U.S. emissions.
U.S. funds to help support other countries in fighting climate change – either adaptation measures to minimize loss and damage or expanding funds to transition to decarbonized development paths – also face likely cuts. Trump’s foreign policy may now be more predictable than ever. It certainly is on climate policy. Trump’s 2017 America First foreign policy declaration, for instance, included no mention of climate change or aid to developing economies.
But even if the election is grim news for U.S. climate action, it’s important to not to be completely despondent about the state of global action. Here are three observations and arguments to try to keep the bad news in perspective.
1. U.S. emissions today are a relatively small and shrinking share of global carbon pollution.
The United States emits 6 billion tons of CO2 equivalent, roughly 11% of the global annual total. This already represents a decrease of about 1 billion tons annually since the U.S. emissions peaked back in 2005. And the U.S. is far from the only country reporting falling emissions: the E.U., U.K., and Brazil have seen similar trends. Even China’s emissions might have peaked last year, depending on 2024 Q4 numbers.
2. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine saw countries deploy clean energy sources to slash reliance on Russian gas.
Following the February 2022 Russian invasion, the world saw a massive spike in fossil gas prices. European governments picked up the tab to partially cushion the financial hit to their populations. And countries like Pakistan faced shortages and electricity disruptions when sellers diverted shipments to more profitable European ports.
But in the wake of the invasion, Europe also deployed large amounts of renewable generation and batteries – and European gas usage and emissions dropped precipitously. Further, Pakistan’s power shortages helped spur massive purchases of Chinese solar panels, which are enough of an economic force to lead to real financial issues with the nation’s electricity grid but also help directly displace coal-based electricity with carbon-free solar power.
3. The nature of the climate problem may be shifting
These developments fit into a shift in the ways that some experts are thinking about the climate change challenge. Traditionally, many have seen climate change as an example of a particularly wicked collective action problem – where no one wants to contribute unless everyone does, and incentives to free ride dominate.
However, a growing literature in political science argues that climate change is primarily a problem of distributive politics, characterized by conflicts between winners and losers. That isn’t to say that free-riding is absent from global climate politics. Yet with cheap solar technology and electric vehicles coming online, more governments seem to be interested in pursuing green industrial policy. The IRA in the United States is one example – an attempt by the Biden administration to ensure that the U.S. domestic economy has a piece of these new industries of the future.
While it’s possible that Trump will simply opt out of this game of competitive decarbonization, his protectionist rhetoric does seem to want to protect American manufacturing. With the backing of Tesla CEO Elon Musk, it’s hard to imagine that EVs and batteries will be completely absent from the list of protected U.S. industry sectors.
Next week will see the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Baku, Azerbaijan – the most important international diplomatic gathering of the year on climate. Expectations for this year’s event were already low. Trump’s election win will likely further dampen expectations. The U.S. and almost every other nation on the planet will send representatives and discuss the ways that their countries are trying to meet their nationally determined commitments to fight climate change, with a new set of updated commitments due in February 2025. Trump may have pulled the U.S. out of the Paris framework – again – by that point, but that’s not likely to keep the rest of the world from moving forward.
