Trump pulls out What's left of global climate protection without the US?
The Trump administration doesn't believe in climate protection. Does this mean the fight against global warming is lost? The USA's influence is probably not quite that great. The problems lie elsewhere.
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- The US government under President Trump wants to scale back climate protection.
- The USA is the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world.
- Despite Trump's initial decrees, the USA will not completely abandon climate protection. Various federal states want to push ahead with this.
- The USA also wants to reduce its spending on climate protection projects outside its territory. This is a tough blow, but not a knockout blow for the fight against global warming.
US President Trump calls climate change a hoax and is fighting it as best he can. As in his first term in office, he has withdrawn from the Paris climate protection agreement. And although a deadline of one year applies, he immediately declared that his government does not feel bound by any of the obligations arising from the agreement.
The withdrawal is the measure that has caused the most discussion in the first few weeks of the new Trump administration, but it is not the only one. The question is: how much will be lost from global climate protection efforts if the USA withdraws? Equally important is the question of how many measures to limit global warming the US government can repeal.
What is certain, however, is that it will be easier and cheaper to market and use fossil fuels in the USA from now on. "Drill baby, drill!" is the motto that President Trump already issued during the election campaign. The USA should drill more for oil and gas again.
This is how much the USA influences the climate
The USA is the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, i.e. substances that contribute to global warming. China emits more than two and a half times as much according to the European Parliament's figures for 2023. The EU is in fourth place, behind India.
However, in order to assess the extent of the USA's influence on global warming, it is necessary to look at its share of total greenhouse gas emissions. China is responsible for a good 30 percent of global emissions ofCO2, methane and other greenhouse gases. The USA emits 11.25 percent. India (7.8 percent) and the EU (6.08 percent) are well behind.
The Trump administration's repeal of as many climate protection measures and laws as possible is not equal to the USA's greenhouse gas contribution to the atmosphere. One reason for this is that the states are responsible for many measures. California alone emits about as much as the UK, which is ranked 23rd in the European Parliament's global greenhouse gas ranking.
Federal states do not want to opt out of climate protection
Various states have already announced that they will continue their climate protection measures, even if they have to fight the federal government in court. California has done this around 70 times in Trump's first term of office due to environmental concerns and has won the majority of cases, as the magazine "State Line" reports.
An important instrument for climate protection in the USA is the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which promotes renewable energies and climate-friendly technologies with subsidies and tax breaks amounting to several hundred billion dollars by 2030.
The Senate has passed the IRA 2022, and Trump has issued an executive order suspending the disbursement of unpaid payments for 90 days. According to the law, however, a Senate resolution is needed to repeal the IRA altogether and thus remove a key financing instrument for climate protection.
A team of researchers from Oxford University has analyzed how likely it is that the new, Republican-dominated Senate will actually make this decision. Because numerous states and even constituencies of incumbent Republican senators benefit directly from the IRA, the study considers it unlikely that a Senate majority will stop the IRA. Jobs could also be an issue. In the USA, 300,000 new jobs are said to have been created thanks to the IRA.
Observers like to cite the conservative state of Texas, which voted 56% in favor of Trump, as an example. In recent years, the "Lone Star State", known for its oil production, has overtaken progressive California in the use of solar energy, benefiting greatly from IRA funds and tax breaks.
Stopping climate protection in the US - especially against the will and action of the states - is unlikely to be easy for the Trump administration.
US aid money for climate protection projects
However, the USA is also promoting global climate protection outside of its national territory with projects and financial aid. The Donor Tracker, which records aid for development projects with an impact on the climate, puts the USA in fourth place among donor countries in 2022, behind Japan, Germany and France. The EU is also ahead of the USA.
According to the Donor Tracker, the focus of climate project funding is on USAID, the agency that the Trump administration wants to massively downsize and reduce its spending accordingly. It is therefore entirely possible that the USA will no longer play a major role in financing climate protection projects in low-income countries in the coming years. However, its share of the aid pot is significantly lower than that of its emissions.
Is Trump triggering a domino effect?
Trump justifies his opposition to climate protection measures not least by citing their cost and the competitive disadvantage they would put US companies at. If one major player gets rid of this cost disadvantage, it could encourage others to do the same. So is the USA triggering a domino effect?
Hardly anyone is currently assuming this and, as shown, the position is controversial even in the USA. Renewable energies and climate-friendly technologies are a growth market in which many companies and countries have invested.
China, by far the largest greenhouse gas emitter, is also a leader in the production of various goods for the decarbonization of the global economy, namely solar panels, wind turbines and electric cars. In addition, China is also feeling the effects of global warming and is therefore taking action against it - without, of course, slowing down its own economic development.
The fact that the USA will play a smaller role in global climate protection in the future is much more of an opportunity for China to become even more dominant in this field.
Hardly anyone is following suit for the time being
A front of climate protection opponents is not in sight. Christoph Bals, political director of the environmental organization Germanwatch, describes the Paris climate protection agreement as follows: "Everyone knew that Trump would pull out again. Nobody wants out - except him."
However, this is not entirely true. The Argentinian foreign ministry recalled its delegation from the climate change conference in Baku shortly after the US elections. According to the Financial Times, the government of Trump friend Javier Milei is also considering withdrawing from the agreement. This would leave 193 of the 195 signatory states.
It's getting that much warmer because of the USA
So what impact will the US government's decision to withdraw from climate protection have on global warming?
It may seem speculative to calculate the impact of the US withdrawal from climate protection on climate change. Nevertheless, one organization has done so. The Climate Action Tracker puts the global warming caused by the US withdrawal at 0.04 degrees Celsius by 2100. If all other countries were to implement their promised measures, the atmosphere would be 2.7 degrees warmer than in pre-industrial times by then.
According to this forecast, the signatory states will therefore clearly miss the Paris Agreement target of keeping warming well below 2 degrees - with or without the USA.