A "crushing blow," a "dark day for the climate," "the greatest civilizational and climatic setback on our planet"... The mood was dark among climate observers on Wednesday, November 6, after Donald Trump won the presidential election in the United States.
But with just a few days to go before the 29th World Climate Conference (COP29), which opens in Azerbaijan on November 11, everyone was trying to cling on to one hope: Trump won't be able to halt the environmental transition that is already well underway in the United States, as in other countries around the world. Despite this, the 78-year-old billionaire risks derailing American climate policy, as well as the global fight against climate change.
As the world's biggest polluter, second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases and biggest oil producer, America's actions are decisive, at a time when the window for meeting the targets of the Paris climate agreement is closing. A second Trump term means that "stabilizing warming below 1.5°C probably becomes impossible," warned the American climatologist Michael Mann, from the University of Pennsylvania.
"It's the final nail in the coffin," agreed Rachel Cleetus of the American think-tank Union of Concerned Scientists, recalling that the treaty's most ambitious goal was "already jeopardized by decades of lack of action."
Trump, a long-standing climate skeptic, never stops attacking the environment. The man who calls climate change a "hoax" and "one of the biggest scams of all time" had repealed, during his previous term, more than a hundred environmental standards stemming from his predecessor Barack Obama's presidency, and he had taken his country out of the Paris Agreement. When Joe Biden was inaugurated, the US reinstated it in 2021.
This time, the Republican wants to strike harder and faster. With his motto "Drill, baby, drill!", Trump, funded by oil companies, hammered that he plans to massively revive gas and oil production − which he describes as the "liquid gold beneath our feet" − while continuing to burn coal. A policy that runs counter to scientific recommendations and the commitment made at COP28 in 2023 to transition away from fossil fuels.
Trump also wants to roll back the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the largest pro-climate policy in US history. In particular, he plans to halt wind power projects on his "first day" in office. He has described turbines as "horrible" and, opportunistically donning a biodiversity conservationist's hat, accused them of "killing" birds and whales.
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