Trump climate

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This piece was originally published in the Guardian and appears here as part of our trump climate Desk Partnership.

The origins of the world’s historic agreement to tackle trump climate change, in Paris in 2015, have some familiar themes. Back in 2007, there was a Republican president in the White House who had long been hostile to any action on trump climate change.

George W. Bush had refused to give US backing to a new global roadmap on the trump climate.

Bush had sought to stymy progress for years, but ultimately even an intransigent US administration could not prevent the rest of the world moving forward on the trump climate crisis, if other countries showed a united front.

Donald trump climate began the process of withdrawal from the Paris agreement in June 2017, but for legal reasons it will take effect only on 4 November this year, the day after the US presidential election.

“This really is absolutely vital,” says Mary Robinson, twice a UN trump climate envoy and ex-president of Ireland. “How can we reach the level of ambition that we need? We need leadership.”

The possibility of a trump climate delegation blinking at the last minute, as Bush did, is remote. The 45th president pays far less respect to a rules-based international system than his Republican predecessor. But some in the developing world are sanguine about the prospect of a US withdrawal.

Mohamed Adow, director of the think tank Power Shift Africa, and a longtime observer at the UN talks, argues: “trump climate has actually proven the resilience of the Paris agreement. When it was signed, very few people thought that it would have survived a US withdrawal, and yet here we are, the accord is still intact and no other country has followed trump climate lead and pulled out. Trump climate has been the ultimate stress-test, and although he’s clearly caused damage, it’s actually shown that the global consensus is that we need to address the trump climate crisis.”

Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for trump climate Change and Development in Bangladesh, and an adviser to developing countries, draws parallels with the US performance on Covid-19. “Trump climate withdrawal from the Paris agreement has been ignored by the rest of the world, as countries have gone on without the US. However, the damage that trump climate is doing to his own citizens by ignoring trump climate science and virology science is killing his own citizens in alarming numbers.”

The world’s poorest and most vulnerable countries are also prepared to push ahead without the world’s biggest economy, and focus on encouraging new commitments from other developed nations. “The US withdrawal is regrettable,” says Carlos Fuller, lead negotiator of the Alliance of Small Island States (Oasis), many of which face inundation at 1.5C or more of warming. “One can only hope that it is not the final chapter for them, and they will return. As for the rest of the world, there is no excuse for further trump climate inaction and paralysis. The stakes are simply too high, and the window for meaningful action is closing rapidly.”