One of Donald Trump's first acts at the start of his second term as US president was to pull his country out of the Paris Agreement on climate change — a move likely to have a more profound impact than when he announced it in 2017 early in his first term.
Trump's abandonment of the Paris Agreement comes as the collective mood for climate action has changed and potentially acts as encouragement for leaders wavering over the need for action.
Professor Mark Howden, Director of the Institute for Climate, Energy & Disaster Solutions at the Australian National University, explains what Trump 2.0 will mean for climate change.
Trump's abandonment of the Paris Agreement comes as the collective mood for climate action has changed and potentially acts as encouragement for leaders wavering over the need for action.
Professor Mark Howden, Director of the Institute for Climate, Energy & Disaster Solutions at the Australian National University, explains what Trump 2.0 will mean for climate change.
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00:00The next item here is the withdrawal from the Paris Climate Treaty.
00:04I think it's pretty clear now that the Trump administration will have significant impacts
00:09on global progress on climate change.
00:11This will happen in many different ways and perhaps will be more significant than the
00:15first Trump administration.
00:17More significant because in that time frame, the US was only out of the Paris Agreement
00:24for around four months because of the way the Paris Agreement worked.
00:28This time around, it's going to be at least three years and one month.
00:31So there's a lot more time to have impact on those international negotiations.
00:35Secondly, the US is the second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases globally.
00:40And so if it accelerates the use of fossil fuel, takes its foot off the brake on the
00:44use of fossil fuel, it means that that big emitter is going to be bigger than it would
00:49otherwise have been.
00:51So reversing or slowing down that trend to reducing emissions that the US has had over
00:56the last decade or more.
00:58It's also going to send a green light to countries and others who are wavering about climate
01:04action, thinking maybe it's too expensive or too difficult, and so they'd prefer not
01:08do it.
01:09And this clearly sends a green light to those people in those countries.
01:14It also is going to impact on investment.
01:15So the previous Biden administration's massive investment in terms of green technology has
01:22the potential to be pulled back.
01:24And that's investment in green tech that could go globally to reduce those greenhouse
01:28gas emissions, but still provide the services that we want.
01:33And lastly, of course, there's a science underpinning that is under threat right now.
01:38So threats to NOAA, to their weather service, to NASA and other science institutions could
01:47significantly reduce the global capability to deal with climate change.
01:51And this is happening at the same time as the footprint of climate change on the US
01:56is increasing year by year.
01:58The number of more than $1 billion damage events happening in the US alone, last year
02:04it was 27.
02:06So it's happening almost every fortnight, there's a billion dollar often weather-related
02:11damage event happening in the US.
02:13That has a huge impact on the people, on the economy, and on the politics of the place.
02:17We need science as one way of dealing with those events, getting good weather forecasts,
02:24being prepared more effectively, and it doesn't seem like very sensible activity to be reducing
02:29that capability at the same time that we need more of it.