Test time: On climate action and President Trump

Many goals related to climate change and public health have important deadlines by 2030: reducing carbon emissions, financing climate mitigation and adaptation programs in poorer countries, protecting biodiversity, anticipating future pandemics, and implementing sustainable development. This does not bode well for any of them, and in the second half of this decade – when the world is in greater need of science that is sensitive to social, development and humanitarian needs, as well as cross-border trust – Donald Trump will become President of the United States. These goals are exploited by treaties that require collective action, the ability to negotiate and compromise, and a willingness to take a long-term view, all of which Mr. Trump has shown he is incapable of doing, jeopardizing the desperate progress the world needs. At the recent COP16 summit, the world’s richest countries refused to fulfill their own commitments to pay for biodiversity management, instead pointing to private sector funding that could fill the gap. COP29 will start drawing up a framework next week within which a carbon offset system would operate without devolving into a “pay to pollute” scheme. During his first term, Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement; refused to fund the WHO; censored research results; promoted carbon-intensive industries; and fomented pseudoscience. He has also undermined scientific collaboration by raising the specter of a “hidden” political agenda and undermined the ability of federal agencies to regulate emerging technologies after the Supreme Court justices he appointed overturned the Chevron doctrine.

With the U.S. likely to shift toward transactionalism over the next five years and the world’s carbon budgets shrinking rapidly, countries fighting climate change must consider binding agreements so that commitments under them can survive a change of government while being prepared during the transition achieve goals more broadly. But then again, the United States under Trump cannot be viewed as an isolated source of stress. First, the impact of Europe’s new carbon border adjustment mechanism on US-EU trade has yet to be determined. Likewise, if the United States reduces adaptation financing (which is not impossible), the drain on other countries’ budgets will harm their ability to handle everything from pathogen surveillance to early warning systems. However, there is still hope. U.S. states have considerable power to implement local actions, which, while less than ideal, must not be underestimated. Trump’s re-election also places greater emphasis on material and other support from other governments to its scientists, collaborators, and evidence-based decision-making to ensure the world moves toward achieving its goals.