COP29: As the Climate Crisis Intensifies, Trump and World Leaders Are Leaving the Stage

Global consensus on climate action is fragmenting, making it far harder to achieve urgent emissions reductions and to help developing countries invest in clean energy rather then fossil fuels. 

Achieving the goals set out in the 2015 Paris agreement was always going to be a challenge. It has been made far more difficult by the slow pace of action over the last nine years, and is imperilled further now because of the rise of authoritarian leaders and wars in Europe, the Middle East and Sudan. 

Even before global politics became so fraught we were moving far too slowly to reduce emissions. “We have failed to bend the curve,” says the lead author of a recent analysis, Sofia Gonzales-Zuñiga.  The 1.5C milestone agreed has been breached, while global carbon emissions, which ought to be on a steep downward trend to hit a required 48% cut from 1990 levels by 2030, are at record levels. 

The “minimal progress” made this decade puts us on track for a 2.7C rise, which if realised would lead to a huge rise in the incidence and severity of extreme weather events, large swathes of the planet becoming unliveable and unable to support food production or wildlife. 

It is not that nothing is being done. The rollout of renewable energy production capacity and infrastructure continues apace. $2 trillion will be invested this year alone, double what’s gone to fossil fuels. Yet at the same time fossil fuel subsidies are at all time highs. 

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COP29 negotiators have two key tasks: speed emissions reductions, and agree how to pay the $1 trillion a year needed to help developing nations cut emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate-driven extreme weather. 

At least third of the trillion should come from developed countries, with most of the rest expected from the private sector. 

Agreeing who should pay – for example developed nations want emerging economies like China and rich petrostates to step up – was already fraught. It has been made far worse by a fragmentation of political consensus and uncertainty over which nations will remain committed to the Paris climate goals. 

The return of Donald Trump to the US presidency threatens to take a key country off the stage. If he is true to his word he will row back Joe Biden’s climate policies, pull the US out of the Paris climate accords and refuse to contribute to developing nations’ transition funds. 

He seems likely to inspire imitators. Argentina’s libertarian President Javier Milei withdrew the delegation of negotiators his country had sent to the UN climate summit in Baku on Wednesday, a day after speaking to Trump by phone. His government later said it would “re-evaluate” its role in global climate talks. 

COP29 had already been hampered by the absence of world leaders supposedly committed to its agenda, including US President Joe Biden, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, India’s Narendra Modi, China’s Xi Jinping, France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Olaf Scholz. 

Many industry leaders too decided not to attend, in contrast to COP28 in Dubai where bankers and industry turned out in droves.

The danger is that as the urgency of climate action only becomes more apparent the solidarity and collective efforts to combat it collapse. 

This fear prompted a group of climate experts this week to write to the UN, arguing that COP summits are “no longer fit for purpose”. 

“We need a shift from negotiation to implementation,” they wrote, arguing the process should be streamlined, with meetings held more frequently and more of a voice given to developing countries.

Others remain more hopeful. The context is different to Trump’s first term, they argue. Countries and industries have begun to transition; they are not going to return to older ways of doing things now investments and plans are in place. 

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“We have been through elections in the past and continued to move forward,” said Jennifer Morgan, Germany’s climate envoy. “The world has moved on,” said another lead negotiator; “the economic case is strong for the transition — there are so many renewables all over the world.”

UK energy secretary Ed Miliband agrees: “No one government or country can stop this transition,” he said. “People see the economic advantages. Countries are being affected daily by the climate crisis; it’s the reality facing countries across the world.”

Others believe Trump will fail to follow through, perhaps a rerun of his failure to implement many of his policies in his first term, perhaps in recognition that rowing back on climate action would cause huge harm to the US economy. 

Trump’s promise to repeal climate policies threatens to push $80bn of investment to other countries and cost the US $50bn in lost exports. He would surrender ground to China – a country he hates – and other emerging powers in the race to build electric cars, batteries, solar and wind energy. 

“The energy transition is inevitable and the future prosperity of countries hinges on being part of the clean energy supply chain,” said Bentley Allen, policy expert at John Hopkins University. “If we exit the competition, it will be very difficult to re-enter.”

Prof Niklas Höhne, a climate scientist at the New Climate Institute in Germany, agrees, arguing that renewables are becoming increasingly cheaper than fossil fuels in almost all contexts, meaning they will “crowd out” fossil fuels, allowing a “much faster decline in emissions than we thought only three years ago”. Trump may be all but powerless to rein in a transition that is well under way. 

Even if Trump does push against climate action we will see state and local governments step up, as happened in his first term. California – the world’s fifth largest economy – plans to eliminate its greenhouse gas footprint by 2045. Even Texas, a Republican heartland, is leading a shift toward wind and solar power.

Even if the US cannot be relied upon for four years or longer the rest of the world needs to step up both emissions cuts and climate finance. That will mean working with a coalition of the willing – Russia and Saudi Arabia, for example, have recommitted to Paris goals this week. 

It means paying closer attention to the science, which repeatedly shows climate change is proceeding more quickly than anticipated, to increasingly dangerous effect, even as negotiations continue. 

“Science is clear that every action matters,” argues Katharine Hayhoe, chief scientist of the Nature Conservancy at Texas Tech University. “That’s why, despite the coming headwind, it’s more vital than ever to continue striving for a resilient future for people and nature. It’s not about saving the planet: it’s about saving us.”