Radical incompetence, or should we be understanding for those people running the biggest worldwide nations for not wanting to lose their powerful growth, and risk making their countries lose momentum and international dominance; referring to China, Russia, and the USA although China has been making promises.
Trump's political positions are populist, more specifically described as right-wing populist. Politicians and pundits alike have referred to Trump's populism, anti-free trade, and anti-immigrant stances as "Trumpism".
Trump couldn’t give a damn about climate change, or otherwise he wouldn’t be vowing to cut regulations again, particularly as a way to help the American car industry. As president before, Trump rolled back hundreds of environmental protections, including limits on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and vehicles, and protections for federal waterways.
He has constantly attacked electric vehicles, promising to overturn Biden targets encouraging the switch to cleaner cars. Not sure, if now with Elon Musk on his team that attitude will continue because Tesla cars could be hit. Actually, here in Britain there are many electric Tesla cars roaming the streets of London.
And he has long railed against offshore wind farms, promising to halt this source of renewable energy as soon as he is elected. Other opposing political figures rejects the idea that human-caused climate change exists; whilst others have argued that human-made climate change is occurring but that the extent to which climate is changing and the precise impact of human activity is uncertain.
Trump, a Republican business mogul who has called climate change a “scam”, has made no secret about his intentions. From plans to withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement once more, to attacks on the scientific research underpinning our knowledge of global warming and the roll-back of key emission-cutting regulations, the incoming administration could mark a major setback for climate action.
Experts believe one of Trump’s first moves after being sworn in on January 20 could be to pull the US out of the landmark global climate agreement. If he takes that step – something he did last time around – the US would join just three other countries outside the Paris Agreement: Iran, Libya and Yemen.
The process to leave would take a year from the time Trump triggers it, meaning that the US will still be part of the Paris Agreement when the COP30 climate talks take place in Brazil in November.
Trump’s team is also reportedly mulling a more audacious attempt to pull the US out of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the instrument underpinning global climate action, for the first time. While leaving the Paris pact would be legally straightforward, experts are divided on whether Trump could withdraw the US from the UNFCCC without Senate approval and – if he did – how easy it would be for a future president to re-join.
Frances Colón, lead for international climate policy at the Center for American Progress, told journalists this week that Washington’s role at COP30 is “not clear”. “Diplomats will do their best, but they’ll have to see whether the White House will be interested at all in engaging in COP talks, and this is still an open question,” she said.
Leaving the Paris pact would mean the US would no longer have to report on its greenhouse gas emissions each year and would have weaker legal responsibilities to provide climate finance for developing countries to adopt clean energy and adapt to a warming world.
Joe Thwaites, senior advocate for international climate finance with the US-based Natural Resources Defense Council, said Trump’s administration is expected to try to cut back on international climate finance provision everywhere it can – but that doesn’t mean funding will fall to zero.
Early in his first term in 2017, when Trump announced that the US would leave the Paris Agreement, he launched a blistering attack on the UN’s Green Climate Fund (GCF) – which was littered with inaccuracies – and refused to deliver any more of a $3-billion pledge to the fund made by his predecessor, Barack Obama.
The US seems unlikely to stump up the $4 billion it now owes to the GCF under Trump, after the Biden administration made another large promise. But some international climate finance may be forthcoming if Congress continues approving money for organisations like the US Agency for International Development and the Global Environment Facility which back climate projects overseas.
“It’s not just about what Trump wants – and last time around, we saw that a lot… he didn’t get his way,” Thwaites said.
International climate finance allocations added up to about $600 million a year when Trump was previously in office. That’s a far cry from the roughly $11 billion a year provided by the end of Biden’s government, but advocates again plan to push hard to ensure the taps are not turned off.
Thwaites said international climate finance “is a vital investment”, adding “there’s still a strong case – including just a very self-interested case for why the US would want to carry on providing this kind of finance” – and geopolitically important partners such as small island developing states are likely to keep on asking for it as a priority.
In addition, the world is now better prepared for a climate-sceptic US president, he noted, compared with the shock in 2016. “People have priced in Trump’s impact,” Thwaites said.
This was reflected at the COP29 climate summit in Baku, he said, where the deal on a new finance goal to channel money to developing countries reflected the likelihood of Washington not playing ball for the next four years in terms of its size and composition.
For example, the decision to allow all finance coming via multilateral banks to be counted towards the goal to provide government finance of $300 billion a year by 2035 means that contributions made by the US can be included in the total, even if it pulls out of the Paris pact. Wealthier emerging economies like China are also encouraged to make voluntary contributions, which could help make up any shortfall due to the US.
One US provider of finance to clean energy overseas, however, could be severely affected under Trump.
According to Kate DeAngelis, deputy director for international finance at Friends of the Earth, Trump will be under pressure from some Republicans in Congress not to renew authorisation for the EXIM (Export-Import) Bank when its current mandate runs out in 2026.
This would effectively shut down the organisation. EXIM is a semi-independent agency and has backed both fossil fuel and renewable energy deployment abroad under both the previous Trump and Biden administrations.
Take care!
Prof. Carl Boniface
Source: ClimateChangeNews.com
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Vocabulary builder:
Pundits (n) = experts, specialists, authorities, analysts
Mulling (v) = considering, pondering, contemplating, think over, think about, give consideration to, chew over, muse over, mull over
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