The next US president’s term will end at the same time as the crucial decade in which the world must slash pollution by half to avoid catastrophic climate breakdown. With the world becoming ever more vulnerable, we are in dire need of politicians who are ready to fight this life-threatening issue. Therefore, it is vital that we ask ourselves, will Trump make the world a better place or leave everyone for dead?
Author: Magdalena Totomanova
Trump has already shown that he is unfit for president in a multitude of ways – and one of those is with his stance on climate change. During his campaign, Trump has called climate change a “hoax” and “one of the great scams of all time”. He has sworn to put a stop to spending on clean energy, eradicate “insane” incentives for Americans to drive electric cars, get rid of various environmental rules and unleash a “drill, baby, drill” wave of oil and gas.
The next president’s term will end at the same time as the crucial decade in which the world must slash pollution by half to avoid catastrophic climate breakdown.
Already, major emitters such as the US are lagging badly in commitments to cut emissions enough to avoid a 1.5°C rise in global temperature. With a rise of just over 1°C, the world is experiencing horrifying consequences: raging forest fires, melting ice caps, devastating droughts and ruinous flooding being just a few examples.
Firstly, if Trump were to win this election, the world would face a dangerous and uncertain future. We are on the brink of an irrevocable climate catastrophe. Although Trump doesn’t want to believe it, we are in a global emergency, for which everyone must do their part if we stand any chance of surviving as a race.
There is enough momentum behind the growth of clean energy that it won’t be thoroughly hindered by a Trump presidency. However, a Trump White House would have a very real effect, adding, by some estimates, several billion tonnes of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.
Secondly, climate denialism would return. Unlike almost every other leader, Trump dismisses and even mocks the threat of global warming. Recently, the former president has said that climate change is “one of the great scams of all time, people aren’t buying it any more” and has falsely claimed the planet “has actually got a bit cooler recently”, that rising sea levels will create “more oceanfront property”, that wind energy is “bullshit, it’s horrible” and that cows and windows will be banned by Democrats if he loses. He has also demanded unfettered oil and gas production in the US.
Additionally, he would have the clean energy policies undone. Trump has vowed to “terminate Kamala Harris’s green new scam and rescind all of the unspent funds”. In its place, oil and gas production will be boosted by opening up Alaska’s Arctic to drilling and ending a pause on liquified natural gas exports. In his first term, Trump crushed over 100 environmental rules but the courts halted much of his agenda. This time, a more ruthlessly efficient and prepared operation is expected, backed by a conservative-aligned judicial system, including the supreme court itself. Trump will work quickly to dismantle previous policies and the Biden approach.
Additionally, a second Trump term would incite a purge of science. Project 2025 calls for civil servants to be replaced by loyal political operatives.
Mentions of the climate crisis were sidelined or erased during Trump’s last term and a repeat is widely expected. Climate considerations for new projects will likely be discarded and states will get less help to prepare for and recover from disasters. Scientists, who remember research being buried and Trump publicly changing an official hurricane forecast map with a Sharpie pen during his first term, fear a reprise. The United States will become a dangerous place for scientists, intellectuals and all who don’t fit with the Republican way of thinking.
When disasters hit the US Trump has signalled that he will withhold aid to states that didn’t vote for him. Is this really the sort of person who should be leading a country with so much influence?
Lastly, a Trump term would lead to international relations being shaken. With the US having left the Paris Climate Agreement, American aid to developing and vulnerable countries would also be cut, along with cooperation with nations on other initiatives, such as cutting methane and reducing deforestation.
US dissociation raises fears that other countries will also withdraw from the climate fight, causing global warming to spin out of control. China, the world’s leading emitter, has retained a level of cooperation with the Biden administration but this faces fracture if Trump wins.
“It’s safe to assume there won’t be any climate engagement between Beijing and Washington,” said Li Shuo, a China climate policy specialist at the Asia Society Policy Institute. “It would be negative for the US and for the world. The US still looms large on the global stage, so I’d expect Trump would sow greater resistance to a climate agenda in China. We will see that commitment to climate start to crumble.” With a world becoming ever more vulnerable, we are in dire need of politicians who are ready to fight this life-threatening issue. Therefore, it is vital that we ask ourselves, will Trump make the world a better place or leave everyone for dead?
Cover image by: Ralph from Pixabay
Edited by: Johanna Larsson Krausová
