Trump’s election and climate

Although a major setback, climate impacts can be lessened if other countries stay the course

Bill Hare, CEO of Climate Analytics writes “The energy transition is now well under way. The economics of renewable technologies are so attractive that they have become an energy juggernaut.”

“But we’ve been here before and the truth is that a second Trump presidency can’t stop climate action, just like his denial of human-induced climate change won’t spare the US from its impacts.”

Bill Hare, CEO Climate Analytics

 

Trump will pull the US out of the Paris Agreement

However, like last time, many US States, local governments and institutions will continue with a program to reduce emissions.

Adam Morton, climate and environment editor for the Guardian notes that despite dire projections of increased emissions in 2016, “the country’s climate-heating pollution over the past eight years has been roughly what was predicted if the Democrats had been in the White House.” Morton cited Trump’s failure to bring back coal, state and city action, and private capital’s response to global agreements.

Bill Hare states that how damaging the second Trump presidency is to climate action depends “very much on how other countries react. If many follow Trump in either rolling back – or slowing down – their action, the damage will be severe, long-lasting and difficult to overcome. On the other hand, if countries stick together and, as they should, deepen their commitments aligning with the Paris agreement’s 1.5C limit, the damage will be significant but not severe.”



The clean energy transition is irrevocable

In evaluating the impact of the next Trump presidency, energy analysts Tim Buckley and AM Jonson point to the unstoppable nature of the clean energy transition: “despite this crushing setback for US decarbonisation, the global energy transition is inevitable, inexorable and accelerating in many countries across the world. The US will be isolated and will now certainly lose the global cleantech race. China wins.” 

Buckley and Jonson cite the ​​IEA’s October 2024 World Energy Outlook, reaffirming the profound global shift to renewables “at an unprecedented rate”, with examples including a 2GW solar project with a massive 11GWh amount of storage in Chile, 3.5GW/4.5GWh project in the Philippines and Saudi Arabia’s 3.7GW solar project “at a record low US$12.90/MWh. For those reasons, the transition is unstoppable.” 

 

“As Ford wanes, BYD booms. This dynamic is a principal enabler of global energy transition, unaffected by the US election result.”

Tim Buckley and AM Jonson

 

The EU may work with China

Buckley and Jonson suggest that China may lever its global lead by working “more closely with the EU in a joint race to the top, leveraging their emissions trading schemes and possibly even with the rollout of a China Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) to extend the EU CBAM.”

 

An opportunity for Australia

Climate finance may head away from the US reversing the massive impact of Biden’s climate and manufacturing legislation the Inflation Reduction Act which drained talent and capital into green tech start ups, and renewables/clean tech manufacturing.

Australia is seen as reliable, we have abundant resources and a highly trained workforce. Although the situation is complex, we need to make sure that we look after our relationships in our own region and protect our biggest trading relationships particularly with China, as well as developing relationships with progressive states like California, or others in the US with clean energy projects.

“We have abundant solar, wind and hydro power, not to mention a skilled workforce and deep expertise in large energy projects.

What’s needed now are durable climate policies that support long-term investment and build the industries of the future, such as green iron for steel production.

 

Australia may have lost a major ally in the climate fight. But that should only make us more determined to work with others around the world.”

 

Associate Professor Christian Downie, ANU

 

We need to set better targets

At this point, working hard on raising Australia’s climate targets may be more effective than trying to peel Labor away from expanding or prolonging gas and coal.

A strong 2035 climate target, like the UK’s 81%, would make it less profitable to sink money into industries that have very limited mid-term prospects, particularly given that solar and batteries are still moving down the cost curve, and energy independence as a goal will become increasingly desirable as the US pulls back into more isolationist policies.

Australia has a role to play in supporting researchers and protecting the global climate science data sets, given Trump has promised to wind back climate science and go after programs and agencies. Australia’s Cape Grim datasets really matter!

 

Implications for the Australian Federal election

In Australia, the left and right also live in different universes

Of great concern is the changed media and tech environment. People live in nearly hermetically sealed media environments. Legacy media is vastly reduced in power, and news is consumed through social media, podcasts and YouTube. News and comment is polarised – algorithms are set up for profit not truth or balance, reinforcing the divide between right and left on so many issues. 

It’s not just the rust belt

Trump used perceived relative cultural disadvantage along with economic disadvantage to supercharge a very effective right wing populist campaign. Gender was a big factor – young men were mobilised, voting on masculinist grounds. The Democrat campaign seemed to ignore young men, offering little in the way of policies that addressed economic disadvantage or offered concrete hope, like supporting apprenticeships and trade education.

It was harder for young men to identify with a candidate who was leading on reproductive rights and supported by Oprah and Taylor Swift. New consitutencies of young men including Latinos resonated strongly with MAGA ideas of increased freedom and male prowess, given their perceptions that relatively speaking they were doing worse, and seen as worse by the political establishment.

 

The election is a tech bros win

Carole Cadwalladwr, writing for the Guardian, explains links between the way we receive information, the way information is created and distributed and Trump’s election results and their implications.  The world has changed since 2016, where politics and media have becoming increasingly intertwined. “We’ve spent those eight years learning a new lexicon: “misinformation”, “disinformation”, “microtargeting”. We’ve learned about information warfare. As journalists, we, like FBI investigators, used evidence to show how social media was a vulnerable “threat surface” that bad actors such as Cambridge Analytica and the Kremlin could exploit.”

“What we did during the first wave of disruption, 2016-24, won’t work now. Can you “weaponise” social media when social media is the weapon? Remember the philosopher Marshall McLuhan – “the medium is the message”? Well the medium now is Musk.

 

The world’s richest man bought a global communication platform and is now the shadow head of state of what was the world’s greatest superpower. That’s the message.”

Carole Cadwalladwr

 

We have been told that the US election result hands an effective playbook to Peter Dutton.

We hope the Liberals aren’t going to run a similar right wing populist campaign, however if this happens, then we must try and get out in front, correct misinformation, and offer real connections in the material world. We can and we must lever our community connections and talk to our neighbours, our families and join with others out on the streets as well as in the media and on social media in support of climate action.

The Climate Council has spent a decade learning how to communicate on climate, with effective corrections to misinformation, through a trusted voices strategy (climate info from nurses, teachers, firefighters and farmers instead of just academics) and are working on communication strategies right now for 2025.

Have a look some ways they tackle climate myths, their post on ten reason why Donald Trump can’t derail global climate action, and this very useful one hour webinar on combatting disinformation and the implication of the US election result.

 

US voters wanted to see immediate, tangible benefits

And again, as in 2016 election, bagging the opposition was not productive.

  • Small target strategies without tangible benefits do not work
  • Centre-right voters, male voters, particularly young male voters, wanted concrete hope
  • US voters did not put “democracy” or intersectional/gender solidarity first

 

How do we present climate as an economic win?

Cost of living seems to be the biggest driver in Australia. Although the Guardian’s robust poll tracker analysis shows voters heading away from the major parties compared to 2022, two party preferred results show Labor trending down, with dissatisfaction perhaps driven by the real economic pain wrought by global inflation off the back of the Ukraine conflict, and also by our over heated housing market. Even if real wages have been trending up, no one seems to be listening.

So the biggest challenge for Vote Climate campaigns seems to be framing climate action in economic terms.

The climate movement is currently working hard on making these connections – for instance the new Parents for Climate/Climate Council report looks at the impact of rising fossil energy prices on household bills. We need to get out in front of scare tactics, and learn how to combat misinformation, given that fossil fuel magnates are already working on misinformation campaigns on renewable energy, EVs and household electrification.

  • Electrification – lowered energy bills. Scare tactics include “they want to take away our gas”.
  • EVs –  $2000/pa savings. Scare campaigns include lack of charging access and “dirty” manufacturing processes (EVs pay back their manufacturing emissions in one year or less and after that its all upside).
  • Renewables and clean manufacturing lower costs and create jobs. However scare campaigns remind us that electricity bills keep going up (but forget to note that this relates to gas export prices). And don’t forget the whales and the ugly bird choppers wrecking farmers’ views!
  • Solar PV. Hard to criticise, and can be framed in terms of resilience and energy independence.

 

It’s time to talk to voters and the community about climate action.

If we get out there on the streets, we can talk to our commiunity, combat the misinformation, and amplify the message that climate action is good for the economy and household energy bills, which will help elect climate-active representatives in the upcoming Federal campaign.

 

Help us get accurate information in front of voters in 2025!

We’d love you to help with our non-partisan Vote Climate campaign. There’s plenty to do – events, letterdropping, pre-poll and polling day.

Head on over to our campaign page and sign up!