‘Extremely dangerous for the world’ Trump election spells disaster for climate efforts

President-elect Donald Trump may be a climate-denying fossil fuel booster, representing a tectonic political shift in how the United States responds to climate change, but the climate science isn’t changing. The crisis is real, it is here, and much work remains to cut global emissions in half by decade’s end — as scientists say is urgently required.

The broad strokes of Trump’s still-uncertain impact are clear: With an avowed climate denialist running the world’s largest economy — a country that on its own accounts for one-fifth of the world’s total greenhouse gas pollution — slashing emissions at the pace and scale required to avoid disastrous global warming just got a lot harder. 

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau congratulated Trump, calling the two nations friends with “steadfast” ties. He also played up the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement negotiated during Trump’s first term as evidence the two governments can constructively work together.

But last year, Trudeau wasn’t on a charm offensive when discussing the possibility of a Trump re-election with the CBC. 

"A Trump presidency that goes back on the fight against climate change would slow down the world's progress in ways that are concerning to me," Trudeau said at the time, describing Trump's approach as "a menace not just to Canada, but to the world."

When Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris Agreement during his first term, Trudeau said he was “deeply disappointed” but Canada would work with American states and stakeholders to address climate change. 

“The struggle against climate change is not over,” said University of Victoria associate professor James Rowe. "But it has been dealt a significant blow, and we have to find ways of triaging, staying in the game, and reducing harm.”

Rowe said the Paris Agreement’s goal of holding global warming to 1.5 C is critical because crossing that threshold means crossing dangerous tipping points, like permafrost thaw releasing billions of tonnes of methane into the atmosphere or the Greenland ice sheet collapsing, leading to major sea level rise. Before the election, the odds of meeting that 1.5 C goal were already low, he said.

“So, at this point, there's zero chance. Of course, we're going to cross 1.5 degrees,” Rowe said. “That is absolutely going to happen after this victory for Trump.”

Rowe emphasized that just because the 1.5C threshold is likely to be crossed doesn’t mean governments should give up, noting that every fraction of a degree matters and is worth fighting for.

“It doesn't feel super hopeful, and it doesn't feel as energizing as a more optimistic agenda would, but I think triaging and harm reduction on the climate front is the way forward,” he said.

In his victory speech Wednesday, Trump spoke highly of oil and gas, calling the fossil fuels “liquid gold.” His campaign promised to increase fossil fuel production, while the Project 2025 playbook spells out plans to slash the federal government’s ability to protect the environment or even track the worsening impacts of climate change, by defunding the Environmental Protection Agency, privatizing the National Weather Service, and more. 

Trump has distanced himself from Project 2025, but the section of the right-wing blueprint detailing plans for the National Weather Service, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA, a federal regulatory agency) was written by Thomas Gilman, a Trump Commerce Department official. Project 2025 says NOAA is part of the “climate change alarm industry” that “should be broken up and downsized,” Politifact notes.

It can also be expected that President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which entails over $1-trillion in spending on climate-related programs, will be on the chopping block. It remains to be seen how deep the cuts will be, given the vast majority of that money is set to flow to Republican districts, but Trump frequently rails against renewable energy and electric vehicles, making it a likely bet green industries will face tougher times.

Despite the anti-climate-change rhetoric Trump uses, Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault told reporters Wednesday that he expects many Republicans will want to see continued investment under the Inflation Reduction Act because their communities are benefiting. At the same time, he said the United States is increasingly looking at climate change through the lens of security, which will benefit Canada.

“The [U.S.] Department of Defense is investing in Canada because they want to secure those [critical minerals],” he said. “So, I think that the United States sees Canada as a very reliable partner and a way to reduce their dependency on China for things like critical minerals and microchips and other essential components for the economy of the 21st century.”

Internationally, Trump’s election over Kamala Harris promises to throw next week’s UN climate change negotiations into chaos. In his first term, Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement, and is promising to pull the country out again. At stake is not just the success of this year’s summit where trillions of dollars in climate finance will be negotiated, it’s the Paris Agreement’s goal of holding global warming to 1.5 C that is now jeopardized like never before. 

Bill Hare, CEO of Climate Analytics and former Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change author, said in a statement that electing a climate denier is “extremely dangerous for the world.”

“Unwinding U.S. domestic action under a Trump administration will damage efforts to limit warming to 1.5 C,” he said. “The prospects of keeping open the 1.5 C goal will ultimately hinge on the level of action taken by all other countries in the next few years and also on what the U.S. does following the Trump presidency’s conclusion.”

The United States is still very influential in climate negotiations, but Rowe says the “reality is that it is a solidly multipolar world,” and other countries like China are incredibly powerful.

“The Biden administration is probably going to be working hard [at COP29] to assure other nations that over the four-year period Trump is in power, states and local governments are going to still be working to slash emissions, and that the U.S. isn't out of the game, even though the federal government is,” he said. 

Others see China as poised to assume more of a leadership role with Trump in power. 

“China finds itself at a pivotal moment,” said Yao Zhe, Greenpeace East Asia’s global policy advisor, in a statement. “Expectations are high that China will join key nations in reassuring the world that climate action will continue.

“Climate played a crucial role in stabilizing U.S.-China relations during the Biden time,” she said. “The Trump administration may undo some of the climate diplomacy gains of recent years, but U.S.-China climate cooperation will continue at the subnational level and among non-state actors.”

Harjeet Singh, global engagement director for the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, said with COP29 beginning next week, Trump’s victory will mean an already challenging summit will be made more difficult. 

"Trump's victory is a profound blow to global climate justice and an alarming escalation of climate risk for the world’s most vulnerable communities,” he said. “His push to ramp up fossil fuel production, disregard for international agreements, and refusal to provide climate finance will deepen the crisis, endangering lives and livelihoods — especially in regions least responsible for, yet most impacted by, climate change.

“By stepping back from climate commitments, Trump's actions threaten to unravel trust in a global system already strained by the indifference and inaction of wealthy nations.”