Can ambitious global climate action survive the decision by the United States government to walk away?

We are pained to ask that question, but political developments of the past year have made it inescapable. The election of Donald J. Trump to a second term as the American president has not only turned that country’s climate policy on its head, but has endangered the strong international action that is so urgently needed. We had dared to hope that if Mr Trump were elected, he might largely ignore climate and energy, as he did in his first term from 2017 to 2021. But the opponents of the sustainability transition were better prepared this time, and Mr Trump has installed many of them into high office with a mission to roll back the clock. He also has a stronger grip over the Republican Party, which controls both houses of Congress and has rushed to do his bidding.

Mr Trump has already signed into law a bill that repeals or sharply limits climate investments that had been adopted under his predecessor. He has filed notice that he will withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, a decision that will take formal effect this coming January. He has moved to revoke the federal government’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases at all, a move that — if allowed by the courts to take hold — would likely hobble climate action by future American presidents.

These developments mean that the climate goals the country has adopted in the past, including ambitious targets for emissions cuts by 2030 and 2035, will almost certainly not be met. The United States was not on track to meet them even under Joe Biden, but now the situation is much worse. Mr Trump’s policies have thrown entire industries into turmoil and have already led to the cancellation of factories and other industrial projects within the United States that would have led to nearly $30 billion of investment.¹ An analysis by experts at Princeton University found that the lost investments over a decade could reach $500 billion.²

The American government’s abandonment of climate action could not come at a worse time for the rest of the world. Countries are in the middle of a cycle in which they are supposed to be announcing ambitious new plans for emissions cuts by 2035. Even if Mr Trump had lost the election, this was going to be a difficult round of negotiations. Many poor countries are dismayed by the paltry financial help they are getting from the rich world to solve a problem largely not of their making, and have been reluctant to offer ambitious plans unless more aid is forthcoming. The rich countries are divided among themselves: even in Europe, the region most committed to climate action, internal fights have broken out about just how ambitious to be.

The new national climate pledges were nominally due in February, but only a handful were filed by then. Even as this report goes to press, relatively few plans have been filed, and they reveal a distinct lack of ambition in setting new emissions targets. If the Americans are giving up, many countries seem to be thinking, why should we keep trying?

We hope this analysis proves too pessimistic. The new climate plans are due to be adopted in November, and there is still time for countries to come forward with increased ambition. It is in their own interest to recognise how irresponsible the American position is, and to resolve to move forward, with or without the Americans. The new government in Britain, led by the Labour Party, has taken this view, and so have a handful of other countries. We hope all other countries that have yet to make new pledges will see the wisdom of following their lead.

As we mentioned earlier, the United States bears the largest responsibility for the emissions that are endangering the planet, with about 20 percent of industrial emissions since 1850. But in current emissions, China now leads the United States, even though its historical responsibility is still much smaller, at about 12 percent of emissions. The bulk of future emissions is projected to come from developing countries, including China. In fact, China’s aggregate emissions have just surpassed those of the European Union.

In effect, this means that action — or inaction — by the United States is no longer decisive in determining the long-term fate of the planet. Virtually all future emissions growth is expected to come from the developing world.

Therefore other countries, if they choose to do so, have the power to get the climate problem largely under control while the Americans sulk in the corner. It is a tragedy, of course, that one of the world’s most dynamic economies will be missing in action as the low-emissions technologies of the future are invented and commercialised. But the Americans have chosen their course; we believe they will find themselves falling further and further behind as greener economies develop in the rest of the world.

Indeed, this is already happening. The report below outlines the dramatic embrace of solar power, wind power, electric cars and other advanced technologies in China. That country has played a central role in driving down the costs of these technologies, with the result that sales of Chinese-made energy technologies are accelerating all over the world.

While China also continues to build coal-fired power plants and to burn oil at a prodigious rate, that country’s emissions may be on the verge of peaking, earlier than the 2030 target set by the Chinese government. In fact, the peak could well occur this year, though we will not be certain until several more years have passed.

The optimistic view is that China is setting itself up to become the world’s first ‘electrostate,’ with the potential to run its economy largely on clean electricity. To cite one example, the idea that the Chinese car market, the world’s largest, will go entirely electric is not some far-off fantasy: China is already more than halfway there, with electric cars representing nearly 60 percent of sales in that country by early August.³ The rise of electric cars is limiting the growth of oil demand, which may peak globally by 2029.⁴ As renewable electricity continues to grow, China will be in a position to start shutting down its dirtiest coal-fired power plants, and to run others less often than in the past, which will help to limit emissions. 

This vision of a fully green China is by no means imminent, but it looks more achievable than it did only a few years ago. We await China’s formal climate plan, which is one of those yet to be made public. In the past, Chinese leaders have been cajoled by the Americans into setting bold targets. That will not happen this time, but we hope the Chinese government will see that charting an ambitious course for 2035 is in the country’s own economic interest.

In fact, most of the technological progress these days is happening in China, not the United States. Western democracies may have good reason to fear Chinese control of the industries of the future, but they have allowed it to happen. The partial reversal of the trend that Joe Biden tried to engineer in the United States now seems likely to fail, or at least to stall for years, giving the Chinese even more of a head start. China seems to see its lead in green technologies as one component of an overall strategy to become the dominant economic power of the 21st century.

Sobering as that prospect might be for the West, we also have to appreciate what China has achieved, to the benefit of the whole world. Countries shopping for clean-energy technologies have only to turn up in Shanghai or Shenzhen to find the world’s largest bazaar for green gadgetry. We see a glimpse of the future in countries like Pakistan, where a mad rush to install Chinese-made solar panels is under way, as a strategy to cope with that country’s unreliable power grid.⁵ Likewise, imports of Chinese-made electric cars are soaring in countries as diverse as Brazil⁶ and Indonesia.⁷

For the foreseeable future, the energy transition comes with a MADE IN CHINA stamp all over it. Perhaps the American voters who gave Donald J. Trump their mandate in November did not quite realise they were walking away from a race for the future, but as factories are cancelled and promised jobs evaporate, they are learning.

Strangely, one of the few national climate plans that has already been made public is a bold one—from the Americans. But that plan was offered late last year, while Joe Biden was still the American president. The Trump administration will almost certainly abandon it, and we would be surprised if the new American government ends up offering any plan at all.

The United States now joins Iran, Libya and Yemen as the only countries in the world not party to the Paris Agreement. This does not mean the race to the future is lost, however — even within the United States. During Donald Trump’s first term in office, emissions continued to fall despite his best efforts to revive coal and turn back the clock.⁸ This time, we hope many state governments will continue to pursue clean-energy goals, in defiance of the federal government. Under the slogan “we’re still in,” many American cities, states and corporations have already declared their intention to do so.

In some sense, nothing has really changed: the countries of the world have never pushed as hard on the climate crisis as they need to do. We have simply entered a period where the required changes will slow down a bit from a pace that was already inadequate to begin with.

As frustrating as this slow pace may be, the green economy is inevitable. We still think the world will get there, albeit with a great deal of damage from dragging our feet for so long. The question of the moment is how long this period of retrenchment will last before we come to our senses and adopt policies that get us back on track.

When the countries of the world convene in Brazil late this year to decide on new steps for global climate action, we hope they will send a powerful message to the United States: we embrace a cleaner, brighter future, even if your government does not. The Americans may have gone home early, but the race is still on.