You’ve probably already heard the worst-case takes: that a second Trump presidency is a disaster for the climate, and will almost certainly lead to emissions being higher than they otherwise would have been. There’s obvious truth in that. But it’s also true that Trump 2.0 will almost certainly not play out in line with immediate post-election predictions.
We have been here before. As the writer and analyst Ketan Joshi points out, in 2016 it was projected that Trump’s policies would lead to a steep rise in US emissions – a fork in the road at odds with the decline forecast if Hillary Clinton had won.
In reality, the country’s climate-heating pollution over the past eight years has been roughly what was predicted if the Democrats had been in the White House. There have been a bunch of reasons for this.
Most obviously, Trump promised to bring coal power back but failed, spectacularly. Coal-fired generation fell nearly 40% during his first term as investors and markets abandoned it as a viable, affordable energy source. States and cities ramped up climate action in response to Trump’s rise and private capital began to respond to the signal from the landmark 2015 Paris agreement even as the US pulled out of that deal.
Of course, the pandemic also dented emissions once shutdowns kicked in. But the rebound as the economy reopened did not take US emissions back to where they were before. The latest data has it slightly below the 2016 projection of life under a Clinton presidency.
Looking ahead, there are a few things we can say.
Trump will again withdraw the US from the Paris agreement, and possibly the overarching UN framework convention on climate change. At least some of the extraordinary US$370bn (A$560bn) clean energy support in the Inflation Reduction Act is likely to be rolled back even though it is driving investment in Republican states – logic is not necessarily a winner here. The US is highly unlikely to meet the 2030 emissions reduction target (a 52% cut below 2005 levels). And the election result will shape what happens at the fortnight-long Cop29 climate summit that began in Azerbaijan overnight.
Beyond that, there is much more we don’t know. Trump wants the country to “drill, baby, drill”, including in Alaska’s Arctic wilderness, but it is unclear what this will mean in practice. Fossil fuel extraction in the US reached record levels under the Biden administration, much of it for export, before approval of liquified natural gas developments was paused this year. Support for clean energy will survive because it makes economic sense but it will be a while before the scale is clear.
What we do know is that the most consequential decisions affecting the climate over the next four years will not be made in Washington.
It was already true, but more than ever the most important gauges of climate progress will be what happens in China – easily the world’s largest polluter due to its extraordinary population, rising middle class and role as the globe’s main manufacturer – and how, where and when global investors deploy trillions of dollars in capital.
As always, the Chinese story on the climate crisis is mixed. According to an analysis by Lauri Myllyvirta, a respected China analyst from Finnish thinktank the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, the country’s domestic emissions have flatlined over the past two quarters, leaving open a slight possibility they could fall this year.
If that happens, it will be a significant moment and ahead of schedule – China’s global commitment is that its climate pollution will peak before 2030 on the way to net zero before 2060. But it will need to do much more to play its part in staving off the worst effects of global heating.
China continues to go big on solar power, having installed 163 gigawatts of new solar (more than twice Australia’s entire electricity capacity) in the first nine months of this year alone. Its solar and wind generation are up 44% and 24% compared with a year ago, respectively. Nuclear power played a smaller role, creeping up only 4%.
After falling for months, its coal- and gas-fired generation also rose by smaller amounts in the third quarter as record temperatures prompted people to reach for their air conditioners and ramp up electricity use. But emissions from steel, cement and oil were down as construction activity continued to drop.
The bottom line is that China is easily the world’s biggest driver of renewable energy – it has more than a third of the global capacity – while it also continues backing fossil fuels. Delegates at the Cop29 talks are watching for signs of whether it will respond to Trump’s return by taking a more aggressive leadership role on climate – not to save the planet, but to advance its strategic interests.
On the question of global investment in non-fossil fuel energy: it has grown dramatically over the past five years, increasing by nearly two-thirds, and is forecast to reach US$2tn this year. Most of the spending is on renewable power and energy efficiency, with support for energy grids and storage making up a smaller chunk and nuclear a much smaller piece again.
The solar and wind component, in particular, will need to continue to expand to meet a global goal of tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030. A potential side-effect if Trump delivers on his promise to scrap the huge tax and production credits for clean energy in the Inflation Reduction Act may be that it increases competition between other countries, including Australia, to attract green spending.
All of this hangs over Cop29, where the main focus will be negotiations over a climate finance goal to help the developing world – and how to avoid backsliding on last year’s agreement that the world needs to transition away from fossil fuels.
Unpromisingly, the talks are being held in a petrostate, and the Azerbaijan deputy energy minister has been caught agreeing to help set up fossil fuel deals during the summit. Combined with events in the US, it is the sort of news that can make a cynic of even the most optimistic observers.
My advice? Don’t ignore it, but remember it is not the whole story.
The climate crisis is happening and will get worse but the drive to limit it and clean up economies continues. There are areas where headway is being made. Just don’t expect it to be a straight line.
Adam Morton is Guardian Australia’s climate and environment editor
