The potential re-election of Donald Trump would be a setback for the US climate policy of recent years. Although emissions reductions remain insufficient, climate policy has been a priority under President Joe Biden. The attempts to find a cooperative format with China despite geopolitical tensions deserve special attention, as I argue in this blog post. This approach could also set an example for European and German foreign policy if Trump is re-elected. In any case, Germany and Europe must assume even greater responsibility and leadership in this policy area. This means meeting their own commitments and helping others to do the same.
In our blog series on this year’s US elections, there has to be a blog on climate policy. As obvious as this seems, it is difficult to write something that a potential reader might not already know. Although the Biden administration has taken a major step towards significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions with the Inflation Reduction Act, the current level of achievement of the climate targets is still insufficient. At the same time, everyone knows that the re-election of Donald Trump to the US presidency would frankly be a disaster for any serious policy on climate mitigation and adaptation. For Trump, the Democrats’ economic and environmental policies are destroying what he sees as the American way of life. Any ambitious plan to reduce the use of fossil fuels will be under threat, if Trump is re-elected, as will the US role, as the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases, in global and multilateral efforts to protect the climate.
Presidential Powers
It was a huge relief when President Biden took office just in time to stop the US withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord that President Trump had initiated during his term. The fact that both withdrawal and re-entry were possible by presidential decision alone is due to the fact that the United States became a member of the treaty without the approval of the US Congress. This was based on the legal position of President Obama, who entered the treaty for the first time in 2016, stating that the agreement was “an executive agreement, containing no substantive, legal obligations for the United States beyond those already required by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change”. It does not, in fact, contain substantive legal obligations, but there are substantial political obligations. Making key commitments of the Paris Agreement only politically binding and not legally binding was the solution in 2015 to reach an agreement after a complicated and fragile negotiation process. And a legally binding commitment, which would have had to go through Congress, would probably not have been implemented either. In short, the specific normative construction of the Paris Agreement is the result of its emergence and at the same time makes it so vulnerable to changes in the administration of member states. It also illustrates a wider issue that cannot be explored in this blog post, which is the expansion of presidential powers over various past presidencies, which is a challenge for the long-term reliability of US foreign policy also in other fields, not just climate.
Paris: “Fluctuat nec mergitur”
The famous motto of the city of Paris – “it is tossed by the waves but does not sink” – in a way also applies to the Paris Climate Agreement. The temporary withdrawal of the US, the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, was a frontal attack. It was one of the successes of the German G20 presidency in 2017 that the damage from the US withdrawal was limited. Other than that, the public debate is dominated by a well-founded criticism that the agreement is not fulfilling its main function of getting member states to minimize their national emissions in order to keep the world on a 1.5°C path. Not infrequently, the conclusion from very different perspectives is that the agreement is simply dysfunctional. The disappointment seems justified from a climate perspective. However, as someone who has been following the recent setbacks to multilateralism in a world plagued by polycrises, I think it is also important to emphasize why the glass is half full rather than half empty in the case of Paris. For all the frustration over missed national emissions targets, it is not self-evident that a global multilateral process in a highly contentious policy area is still underway in times of social polarization, geopolitical tensions and major wars.
Risk Sharing Despite Geopolitical Tensions
If we have learnt anything from the past few years of crisis, it is that public and sometimes political attention is limited to a single major threat. And it was always the climate crisis that had to take a back seat when the pandemic unfolded and when the wars in Ukraine and Gaza demanded the attention of political leaders. Against this backdrop of geopolitical tensions, wars and polycrises, a joint US–China initiative deserves more attention. In November 2021, just before the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow – the one that had to be postponed because of the pandemic – the US and China declared that they would work together more closely to enhance their climate action. The declaration refers to policy and regulatory frameworks, climate finance, as well as decarbonization and methane mitigation drivers with significant impact. The statement includes a clear message that the goals of the Paris Agreement must be met. Furthermore, both sides agree to establish a “Working Group on Enhancing Climate Action in the 2020s”. All of this has been introduced explicitly despite the geopolitical challenges. The State Department’s X (formerly Twitter) account “Climate@State” posted in August 2022: “From day one, the United States has made clear that our climate engagement with the PRC should remain separate from the other tough issues our two countries face.”
A Fragile Cooperation
The fragility of this commitment became apparent in the summer of 2022. When Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives, decided to visit Taiwan, the Chinese side canceled a working group meeting after months of preparation. So, unlike the US, China was not willing to keep tough issues separate, but rather used climate cooperation as a tool to exert pressure. Finding a restart for climate cooperation took time and effort. In July and November 2023, US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate Change John Kerry and China’s Special Envoy for Climate Change Xie Zhenhua met in Beijing and California, resulting in the so-called Sunnylands Statement. The statement recalls and reaffirms the intention of both sides to work together on climate issues and includes the decision to now “operationalize” the working group. The working group finally met in May 2024 to discuss the following issues: “energy transition, methane and other non-CO2 greenhouse gases, circular economy and resource efficiency, deforestation, and low-carbon and sustainable provinces/states and cities, as well as cooperating on multilateral issues related to promoting a successful COP 29 in Baku, Azerbaijan”. The meeting was followed by a “High-Level Event on Subnational Climate Action” on 29 and 30 May in Berkeley.
A Real Achievement in Times when Multilateralism is Still in Crisis
So far, of course, the climate has not benefited much from this cooperation. The success has been that both sides expressed an intention to cooperate on climate issues and that the working group has met. In other words, it looks more like a symbolic policy than a substantive one. But at a time when global multilateral efforts are hard to come by, this kind of symbolic cooperation is already very meaningful. At a time of growing North–South divisions and competing visions of world order and domestic political systems, it is a significant sign when the two powers that in many ways epitomize the competing spheres agree that there is an existential threat that we all share and that we must work together to address. It is a real achievement of the Biden administration, and it is almost certain that a re-elected President Trump will not continue the process that has been initiated with so much effort.
What to Do?
A President Trump will probably fuel resentment towards China and pursue a policy of non-cooperation in all policy areas. In this respect, the sub-national element, which has already been introduced by the high-level event, is of particular importance. In the past, the reaction of various municipal and social actors to the temporary withdrawal from the Paris Agreement was very impressive in terms of continuing to adhere to climate targets. A similar movement is needed again. At the multilateral level – and here the US–China approach can be a real role model – European and other governments must step in and promote the idea of cooperation across the borders of friendly and like-minded states. There is probably no point in spending too much time dealing with Trump in this policy area. The approach of German and European foreign policy must be to involve all the others and encourage them to remain part of the solution to the problem – albeit with varying degrees of ambition. Germany and Europe should take the lead in strengthening political and legal norms and in pushing for more binding norms. This also means meeting their own commitments and helping others to do the same. Above all financial and technological support are needed. Under no circumstances should a change in the US administration result in the global process being impaired beyond its own departure.
Stefan Kroll
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