Climate negotiators from Europe, Latin America and some island nations are bracing for the potential return to the world stage of Donald J. Trump, who withdrew the United States from the fight against global warming during his first term.
Nations will press forward without the United States if they must, according to climate negotiators who gathered in New York last week during the United Nations General Assembly. But the first Trump presidency was a setback in the climate fight, and a repeat would slow things down at a critical point when scientists say efforts need to speed up.
“I don’t want this to happen, of course,” said Laurence Tubiana, who served as France’s climate ambassador during the creation of the 2015 Paris agreement, referring to a potential Trump victory. “But I think there will be a sentiment that we have to double down on the Paris agreement framework. I think everybody’s preparing for that.”
The night before Donald J. Trump won the presidency in 2016, an adviser to developing nations in global climate negotiations declared, “No one believes Trump can win, so no real Plan B here!”
After he beat Hillary Clinton to win the White House, Mr. Trump kept the world guessing for months about whether the United States would remain a global partner on climate change. Many leaders reserved early judgment, hopeful that people like Mr. Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, would convince him to stay in. They didn’t.
Mr. Trump, who has dismissed global warming as a “hoax,” made the United States the first and only country to withdraw from the 2015 Paris agreement that calls on countries to cut the pollution from oil, gas and coal that is dangerously heating the planet. The Trump administration also worked with major oil producers like Saudi Arabia to weaken global pledges around fossil fuels. President Biden rejoined the Paris agreement on his first day in office.
With the next U.N. climate talks scheduled to begin in Azerbaijan on Nov. 10, just days after the U.S. election, many are feeling a sense of déjà vu.
“It won’t catch anyone by surprise if the first thing that he does is take the United States out of the Paris agreement,” said Christiana Figueres, who led the U.N. climate change body when the accord was developed. “Been there, done that.”
Some leaders acknowledged there was little countries could actually do if Mr. Trump once again withdrew from the Paris agreement.
Justin Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada, said last year that if Mr. Trump were to return to office, it would “slow down the world’s progress” on climate change.
According to three negotiators who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, there are talks to ensure that if Mr. Trump wins, multiple countries will emphasize that they are committed to the fight against global warming.
“The rest of the world will have to communicate immediately,” Ms. Tubiana said. “We will not be taken flat-footed like we were last time.”
Several leaders insisted that the world will make progress in transitioning away from fossil fuels regardless of Mr. Trump.
“What we have now is actually unstoppable,” Ms. Figueres said. “The direction is unstoppable. What we’re all focused on is scale and speed, but not direction.”
Sandra Guzmán Luna, who negotiates on climate finance on behalf of Latin American and Caribbean nations, cautioned against putting too much emphasis on American influence. While few countries are on track to meet the emissions goals they set in Paris or deliver the financing needed to help steer the world toward clean energy, most governments are trying to speed that work, she said.
President Biden has pledged to cut emissions from the United States by at least 50 percent from 2005 levels by the end of this decade. That target would become moot in a second Trump administration.
But some states would continue efforts to cut emissions while expanding wind, solar and other renewable energy, as they did in 2017 when a coalition of governors, mayors and businesses declared they were “still in” and working toward the Paris goals.
“The message is: Don’t give up the ship under any circumstances,” said Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington, a Democrat who worked with the coalition.
“If Trump is elected, he will find some way to throw sand in the gears of progress, there’s no question about that,” Mr. Inslee said. “But progress will continue in states. He won’t be able to totally eliminate everything that we’ve done.”
Vice President Kamala Harris, Mr. Trump’s Democratic opponent, supports climate measures.
At climate talks last year in Dubai, she said global warming required urgent action. “The clock is no longer just ticking, it is banging,” she said. “And we must make up for lost time.”
As vice president, Ms. Harris helped pass the largest federal investment in climate and clean energy initiatives. Her economic plan calls for speeding the production and deployment of renewable power, though it includes few specifics.
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