Donald Trump’s shift away from confronting the climate crisis will not only have negative effects at home, but ripple down to countries taking their cues from the United States, experts said.
As his first order of business after taking office as the US’ 47th president on Monday (Jan 20), Trump announced plans to withdraw from the Paris Agreement while ramping up domestic oil and gas production and forging a path to leadership in the artificial intelligence space.
On Tuesday, Trump hosted tech industry CEOs at the White House to announce a massive private sector investment in infrastructure with the goal of increasing to “at least” US$500 billion worth of AI projects, including data centres and physical campuses.
AI is energy-intensive, noted Professor of Economics Pushan Dutt.
“The prediction is that the US is going to need 35 gigawatts of power in a year just to train its large language models,” said the academic at business school INSEAD. Just 1 gigawatt could power about 876,000 households for one year.
The US, which accounted for 14.4 per cent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions in 2023, will contribute more to global climate change under Trump, said Dr Vinika Rao, executive director of INSEAD’s Africa Initiative.
At the same time, withdrawing from the Paris Agreement will mean that the US will not need to report its emissions, she noted. The only nations outside of it are Iran, Libya and Yemen.
“From the rest of the world’s perspective, they’re going to shake their heads and then stop taking the US seriously. So this will push back all of the climate change initiatives considerably for five years, at least, if not more,” said Prof Dutt.
GLOBAL IMPACT
With the US repealing its participation in the Paris Agreement, countries’ faith in the pact, which binds 196 nations to a goal of keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial times, will be “shaken”, he added.
“Many of these countries actually also have to step up on the climate initiative, and I don’t see them doing that (now),” he said.
This is despite scientists declaring earlier this month that the planet for the first time breached the threshold last year. Beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius, the climate crisis – which has seen weather extremes wiping out homes and people – is expected to be more than people can handle.
Dr Rao similarly noted that the US, as the world’s largest economy, has a very large and important international voice, and therefore has a huge impact on what other people do.
However, the procedure will take almost a year, meaning that the US will still be a part of the COP30 discussions later this year in Brazil, she pointed out.
“But it remains to be seen just how engaged the nation will be,” she said.
US’ international climate finance responsibilities will also cease, she noted, reversing the Biden administration’s efforts.
In 2021, the US government pledged to scale up US international public climate finance to developing countries four-fold from its highest levels to over US$11 billion per year by 2024.
“What that means is that then the financing available to the developing economies to deal with climate change themselves and to try and adopt cleaner energy measures for themselves will now become much less,” said Dr Rao.
Another indirect impact is that across the world, countries will prioritise growth and investment over cutting back emissions, as they see the US as an unreliable ally amid its protectionist stance, said Prof Dutt. This will increase the need to burn coal, which produces carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide – powerful greenhouse gases that blanket the Earth and trap the sun’s heat.
ASIA AS A BRIGHT SPOT
Despite possible issues Trump’s presidency could cause for the climate, Climate Group CEO Helen Clarkson said that it may not all be doom and gloom.
Ms Clarkson, whose organisation specialises in climate and energy initiatives, noted that the world is now in a different stage of climate transition compared with when Trump began his firm term in 2017.
He had announced the US’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement at the time as well, but it lasted only 107 days as then-President Joe Biden reversed Trump’s decision when he took office.
“In 2017 … we saw straight away some of the countries wobbling a bit and saying ‘maybe we won’t commit’,” said Ms Clarkson.
“But the economics have really changed. I don’t think you are gonna see very much change – from China in particular.”
She added that there has been a lot of progress in renewable energy in Asia, with India seeing it as a way to get energy access for the population.
“The climate fight will be won or lost now in Asia, and Climate Group’s working with a lot of countries and companies in Asia, but it’s really critical that we hold the path,” she said.