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Trump-shaped climate disaster

ByHT Editorial
Jan 22, 2025 08:28 AM IST

Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and rollback of climate policies signals a return to fossil fuels, risking a worsening climate crisis.

Contrast the visuals of a burning American city (Los Angeles) with those of the new American president, Donald Trump, signing an executive order withdrawing the United States (US) from the Paris climate agreement minutes into his inauguration. The horrific reality of the climate crisis, it would seem, is less compelling for the Trump administration than the reality TV spectacle of mainlining contempt for global climate action and attempts to nail responsibility for global warming on the US. Trump’s withdrawal from what he termed the “unfair, one-sided Paris climate accord rip-off” will take a year to materialise. But when it does, the US will be in the company of countries such as Iran, Libya, and Yemen, which decided to stay outside the agreement.

Homes reduced to rubble by the Palisades Fire are seen in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, on January 18, 2025. (Photo by Robyn Beck / AFP) (AFP) PREMIUM
Homes reduced to rubble by the Palisades Fire are seen in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, on January 18, 2025. (Photo by Robyn Beck / AFP) (AFP)

But the withdrawal was not the only climate blow Trump dealt on Monday; he rescinded many climate-sensitive Biden-era policies, including a ban on oil exploration in a large swathe of the Arctic. Earlier, in his inauguration speech, Trump reiterated a line he had appropriated from past Republican presidential campaigns: Drill, baby, drill! With this declaration of his administration’s intent to make America “oil-rich” and, thereby, “wealthy”, he signalled a return to the carbon economy. The president also ordered the shutdown of government offices and programmes aimed at protecting the country’s poorest from the climate crisis. Trump’s assault so far on US climate action could well be a prelude to a difficult future for sectors such as clean energy and electronic vehicles, as his campaign has pledged to reverse friendly policies brought by previous administrations, terming these “the green new scam”.

The global community, of course, stares at the cataclysmic worsening of the climate crisis if the second-largest current emitter of greenhouse gases and the largest legacy emitter refuses to recognise the perils of undoing the global consensus on climate action and actively furthers emissions. An analysis by Carbon Brief estimates the Trump presidency to significantly slow emission reduction by the world’s largest economy and add an extra four billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent to US emissions by 2030. Hopefully, the country’s federal set-up will now allow sub-national mitigation action, with state and city governments acting to limit the damage that will be wrought by Washington. Otherwise, Trump’s current and future orders will become the death warrant for the planet.

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