Donald Trump has pulled off one of the biggest electoral
shocks in US history, beating Democrat Hillary Clinton to become the 45th US
President. edie explores what this could mean for the country's future
international leadership on climate action.
Political outsider Donald Trump will become the 45th US
president after a stunning victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton.
The Republican's victory, which came down to a handful
of key 'swing states', has already rocked global financial markets, with the US
dollar and major European stock indexes - including that of the UK -
tumbling within minutes of the revelations.
Some analysts have likened the shock of Trump's victory to the
Brexit result earlier this year due to the uncertainty it will
inevitably cause around a number of key global issues, including climate change.
Amidst a plethora of controversial policy pledges and
statements on his campaign trail, Trump dismissed climate change as a
"hoax"; said he would "cancel" the newly-ratified Paris
Agreement, and promised to "save the coal industry". And to make
matters worse for America's green economy, the new President is now
expected to appoint a number of climate sceptics to key positions within his
Administration.
Reacting to Trump’s victory today, Friends of the Earth
chief executive Craig Bennett said: “The election of President Trump is
clearly a major threat to our climate and future well-being of generations to
come... It is now more important than ever for individuals, communities,
cities, regions and companies to lead the way in building a cleaner, safer
future or us all.”
Donald Trump and climate change
A look back at Trump's Twitter account shows the extent of
the real estate tycoon's climate change scepticism. In 2012, @realDonaldTrump tweeted
that:
"The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in
order to make US manufacturing non-competitive".
"The concept of global warming was created by and for the
Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive."
He has since repeatedly used his social media accounts to
label global warming a "hoax", often because he was posting the
updates when the US was experiencing a period of cold weather.
"Ice storm rolls from Texas to Tennessee - I'm in Los Angeles
and it's freezing. Global warming is a total, and very expensive, hoax!"
But Trump adamantly denied having made such
claims during his first debate against Clinton earlier this year,
insisting "I do not say that" after Clinton said: "Donald
thinks that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. I think
it's real."
Trump has also pledged to stop all US payments for United Nations
global warming programmes if he won. “We will cancel billions in global warming
payments to the United Nations, and use that money to support America’s vital
environmental infrastructure and natural resources,” Trump told
supporters a week before his Presidential victory.
The Democrats, meanwhile, took the opposite tact, with
Clinton's campaign listing "climate change" as a key issue on its website and Clinton herself pointing to recent
flooding in Florida as evidence of global warming’s worsening effects.
So Florida, one of the most vulnerable states to #climatechange,
is voting for a candidate who thinks Global Warming is a Chinese Hoax
Donald Trump and the Paris Agreement
In May, former reality TV star Trump vowed to "cancel" the Paris Agreement signed
by more than 195 countries - including the US - in December 2015 and officially
brought into force last week.
Speaking to supporters in Bismarck, North Dakota, Trump
said: “We’re going to rescind all the Obama administration job-destroying
action plans, including the Climate Action Plan and the Water of the US rule...
We’re going to save the coal industry, these are great people... We’re going to
cancel the Paris Agreement and stop all payments of US tax dollars to UN Global
warming programmes.”
Technically, no individual country can actually 'cancel' the
Paris Agreement, and now that it has come into force no country can easily
withdraw from the Agreement for at least three years. After that
point, signatory nations are able to withdraw from the deal by giving just
one year’s notice, meaning that Trump could get the US out of the Agreement
before the end of his first four-year Presidential term.
The deal required 55 countries that produce at least
55% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions (as of 2015) to ratify it before it
could come into force. As of today (9 November), the deal has been ratified or
otherwise joined by 103 nations, representing 73% of global emissions. The US, which ratified in September, represents 17.89% of global
emissions, meaning that, if the country pulled out of the Agreement today,
national commitments would be at 55.11% - just above the 55% emissions
threshold.
Nonetheless, a US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement would
mean the country is not be bound by any national emissions reduction
commitments to help keep global warming under the agreed 2C limit, which could
effectively derail the effectiveness of the Agreement given America's impact on
global emissions. It is also feared that, if the US does withdraw from the
Agreement, other major nations could be encouraged to weaken their own emission
reduction plans.
Commenting on Trump's Presidential victory, Christian Aid’s
international climate lead Mohamed Adow insisted that the global transition to
a zero-carbon economy will not be held up by one man.
“Last year’s Paris Agreement showed the world was united in
its concern about climate change and its commitment to decarbonising the global
economy," Adow said. "The rest of the world will not risk a global
climate catastrophe because of one man’s opposition.
“Although the US will certainly suffer from any obstruction
of efforts to stop climate change, it also risks the lives of millions of the
world’s poorest people who have done nothing to cause the problem yet are the
most vulnerable to its effects.”
Donald Trump and fossil fuels
As part of his 'America
First Action Plan', Trump wants to put fossil fuels front and centre of US
energy policy, calling for less regulation and more production. With the US now
the world’s biggest producer of natural gas but still dependent on oil imports,
Trump has said he wants the country to be "energy independent" and to
"sell our energy to other places".
In May, Trump said he would approve the Keystone XL pipeline, a totemic oil project
that Trump's Presidential predecessor Barack Obama rejected last year after
more than seven years of evaluation. “I want the Keystone pipeline, but
the people of the United States should be given a significant piece of the
profits,” Trump said at the time.
During another campaign speech, Trump supporting fracking,
claiming that "the shale energy revolution will unleash massive wealth for
American workers and families". But the Republican adopted a position
that mirrored that of many Democrats; calling for voters to decide upon
hydraulic fracturing at a local level.
On coal, Trump has promised repeatedly throughout his
campaign to save the country's dwindling industry. He is one of few
politicians that supports the development of "clean coal" -
which involves burning coal as efficiently as possible and then capturing
the emissions afterwards. But this concept has been dismissed as fantasy by
many energy experts, due to its high cost and technical difficulty.
If Trump follows through with his energy policy pledges, the
US could see a significant increase in emissions. Research organisation Lux Research recently concluded that
Trump's energy policy would lead to an extra 3.4 billion tons of CO2 emissions
compared with Clinton’s proposals.
Donald Trump and renewables
In September, Trump told an industry audience in Pittsburgh that he
would effectively scrap the $5trn Obama-Clinton Climate Action Plan and
the Clean Power Plan, the latter of which was passed in 2014 by the Obama
Administration with the goal of curbing the country’s greenhouse gas emissions
by 30% by 2030.
Whilst Trump did not give any mention of specific renewable
energy policy changes during his campaign trail, it is feared that the new
President could slow down the pace of renewable energy growth in favour of
fossil fuel developments through a withdrawal of subsidy support for new clean
energy projects.
But it would be difficult for the Trump Administration
to stall the growing number of renewable energy projects that are being
rolled out across the country and thrwart what is a rapidly growing, and
increasingly popular, sector of the US economy. A recent Pew Research
Centre study revealed
that 83% of American adults support expanding wind farms, while 89% support
solar expansion.
Late last year, Trump had a legal challenge against a
planned offshore wind farm on the coast of Scotland rejected by the UK's Supreme Court. Trump was taking on the
Scottish Government, which approved the plan. to construct 11 wind turbines
close to Trump's golfing development on the Aberdeenshire coast. The Trump
Organisation said it was an "extremely unfortunate" ruling and it
would "continue to fight" the wind farm proposal.
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