The Current - How Trump’s victory could affect climate change policy

Episode Date: November 11, 2024

The COP29 climate summit begins today, with uncertainty about the impact U.S. president-elect Donald Trump will have on climate change policy. Matt Galloway talks to a panel of climate experts about what could happen if the U.S. retreats from the fight, and what roles the international community should take on. 

In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news, so I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with Season 3 of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy.

On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current Podcast. COP 29, the annual UN Climate Negotiation Summit, kicks off today in Baku, Azerbaijan. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is not there in person, but you can bet that attendees are thinking about him. We're going to drill, baby, drill. We're going to bring it back so fast. Remember, we have more liquid gold under our feet than Saudi Arabia, than Russia, than anybody. When people talk about global warming,

I say the ocean is going to go down one hundredth of an inch within the next 400 years. That's not a problem. That's Donald Trump speaking on the campaign trail this past year. He has in past dismissed climate change as a hoax, promised to roll back support for electric vehicles and expand fossil fuel production. COP is taking place in the shadow of Trump's victory, as many there consider what a second

Donald Trump term could mean for the fight against climate change. Catherine Abreu is in Baku attending the climate summit. She is a Canadian climate activist and director of International Climate Politics Hub, which is a network of organizations working in climate diplomacy. Catherine, hi. Hi, Matt. This is the first day of these negotiations of this summit, and it's just wrapping up now. How large does Donald Trump loom over COP? Well, you know, obviously, I think those election results are on many people's minds, and it certainly doesn't make our job in these spaces any easier. That being said, it's important to remember that the United

States is, while a very large, influential, powerful, and rich country, one country. And I think there's a bit of a myth that because of these election results, we're not seeing leaders show up to COP 29. We're not seeing the amount of political investment in these talks. And that is simply not the case. Over 90 world leaders are here in Baku. Even more ministers are here to get down to the hard work of the negotiations. And really all indications at this point tell us that the government officials are here to do their job and to talk about the next climate finance pledge.

So I'm not going to claim it's not on people's minds. Of course it is, as is the devastating climate impacts that are only mounting around the world. However, I think the feeling in these halls is that we are continuing the momentum and this space is actually kind of designed to help us all weather shorter term political shifts. Can I go back though, just to, I mean, to your point, there are other conversations that are happening, but when the leader of that large, influential, powerful and rich country, the next leader, has said that climate change is a hoax, that he wants to drill, baby, drill. What are the conversations that you're having, just even on that first day with other people there, about what that's going to mean?

You know, it's interesting, Matt. I feel like we have an annual conversation around COP. I've been at this for a long time. And I think a conversation has really shifted from when I first started doing this work, where if there was a prominent political voice on the world stage denying climate change, that would send a kind of shock through the system. But at this point, the evidence of the escalating climate crisis is so clear to all of us. We are all feeling it on an almost daily basis. This is the warmest year on record, the most expensive year when it comes to climate impacts for Canada, as the Insurance Bureau of Canada just told us. So at this point, we're all paying for it. We're all feeling it. And no matter how much a bombastic politician might claim that climate change isn't real, that kind of shockwave does no longer occurs in these spaces because everyone understands that tackling this crisis is really critical. So I think really the

response is more, okay, well, this gives us a sense of the extent to which those who benefit from the status quo, those who are wanting to continue the ever-increasing expansion of fossil fuels, have done a good job buying some politicians. And I think we can all look to Trump as, in some ways, a bit of a reaction to some of the momentum away from fossil fuel dependence and climate disaster that we are still seeing ongoing in the system as we turn to renewables. The focus of COP this year is largely on climate change financing. And we know, I mean, you talk about people who are attending. Some of the folks who aren't attending are making a lot of noise for why they aren't there. Papua New Guinea polled

its main officials from COP 29 because it says the countries with the largest emissions aren't there. Papua New Guinea pulled its main officials from COP 29 because it says the countries with the largest emissions aren't keeping their promises to provide financial assistance to lower income countries that are bearing the brunt of climate change. That country's foreign minister called COP, in his words, a total waste of time. How likely is it that the conversations that are going to happen over the course of the next several days at the summit are actually going to be able to figure out a way to get rich countries to give more money to lower income countries. This is an ongoing discussion, but it feels like we're at the pointy edge of that discussion now. Yeah, that's right. I think we've kind of reached the limit to which we can expect the kind of goodwill of developing countries to continue in these conversations around climate cooperation without the, you know,

equal goodwill coming from rich, developed countries saying we're going to bring real money to the table to help you both address the losses and damages that you're experiencing from climate impacts already, adapt to those climate impacts and take action to reduce your emissions. So that is the linchpin of these conversations. And that's why I say ministers and world leaders are here to get to work. And that is the feeling in the halls right now as we begin COP, that it's not, this isn't gonna be a glamorous COP.

This is gonna be a really hardworking COP where those difficult conversations are gonna have to happen and where developed countries and Canada has a real role to play, I think, here, are going to have to take themselves out of their usual position of backing away from making real financial commitments, because it's really clear that if the money isn't on the table, then we're just going to get less ambitious climate pledges from the developing world and from the developed world. And we're going to see that goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees get further out of reach. This is a question that you asked on social media earlier

today. Where is the money? What is the answer from Stephen Guilbeault? I know that he, Canada's climate representative, minister for the environment and climate change, is there in Baku. So where's Canada's money? Yeah. So there's kind of three things that Canada's got to do in this space. One, we have to, along with other developed countries, and it's important to remember that while this election result in the U.S. looms large, it's still the Biden-Harris administration that is represented in the negotiations here. So developed countries like Canada need to be saying, okay, here's where we know we can take our climate finance assistance in the next few years. Then they need to say, here's what we can add to that using innovative ways of raising money,

like thinking about levies on high polluting sectors. This is a huge conversation that next year's COP president is bringing into the mix. Brazil is saying, how do we actually harvest some of the wealth that's really contained right now in the billionaires and the fossil fuel sector and the aviation sector and the shipping sector? How do we use some of those innovative sources of financing to up the ante on those sources of money? And then beyond saying, OK, here's what we can offer in terms of a dollar amount. Canada has a role to play, especially with Minister Guilbeault as someone who has credibility in this space, bridge building between developed and developing countries to really hear, OK, what are the needs that is coming from the global south? countries to really hear, okay, what are the needs that is coming from the global south?

And what's the scale of response that we as developed countries need to put on the table to respond to those? Just the last question on the money thing. I mean, is your sense that rich countries are actually going to pony it up and deliver the money that's been promised? I mean, we saw Spain announcing today that it's providing something like 3.76 billion more euros after 10 billion euros that it announced last week to help clean up after its own floods, those devastating floods that we saw in the last couple of weeks in Spain. So is there going to be money from wealthy countries to actually deliver on the promise that has been made? So we're hearing that a few more of those climate finance announcements will be coming from rich, developed countries in the next few days. And I'm expecting an announcement even to come from Canada, hopefully in the next couple of days on climate finance. And I think there's a question to be put to the finance ministers. And important to note that simultaneous to the climate talks happening in Baku, the G20 leaders are meeting. And this is,

of course, a group that is formed to really speak about how the economic, the broader global economic system needs to function in order for domestic economies to be able to move forward with their agendas. So we need that signal also coming out of the G20 leader summit that those rich nations are willing to put that money on the table. And I think important to this conversation is that number needs to be credible. So the last global climate finance pledge that we had, that $100 billion that came out of the 2009 Copenhagen talks, that was kind of developed countries throwing a number at the wall. And they didn't necessarily know when they put that number out there, how they were going to meet it. And I think a lesson was learned from that process. So what I'm hearing developed countries say is,

we know we need to put the money on the table. And we know we also need to have the plans in our pocket for how we're actually going to deliver those funds. So that is what we're hoping to see in the talks in the next two weeks. And we'll see whether we get there. In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell.

I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with season three of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. I want to bring a couple other people into our conversation. Jonathan Foley is a climate scientist, executive director of Project Drawdown, which is a climate solutions organization. He is in Minnesota this morning. And Kate Logan is director of the China Climate Hub and Climate Diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute. This is a think tank that is dedicated to understanding Asia and its place in the world. She's in Washington, D.C. this morning. Good morning to you both.

Good morning. Good morning to you both. Good morning. Good morning, Matt. Jonathan, you are in the United States. You've heard what Catherine's saying and the view from Baku. How concerned are you about the impact of another Trump presidency on the fight against the climate crisis? Well, it's not good, that's for sure. To elect a leader with the world's largest economy today that says he doesn't believe in climate change, that wants to roll back into the 19th century kind of economy of coal and oil is just crazy. But you have to measure his words against what he actually can accomplish. We still hopefully live in a democracy where the presidency has a lot of power,

but not absolute power. And there are 50 states. There are numerous countries. There's Wall Street. There's Silicon Valley. It's a very big country. And any one person, even a president, has limited power to really change things

as much as he likes to think. So it's not going to be good, but all is not lost, for sure. As we saw in the first Trump presidency, others respond. The states, the cities, the bulk, by far the bulk of the U.S. economy, continue to decarbonize during the Trump administration. So it's a bad time for working on climate, but I think we have to shift our focus elsewhere to other levers of change. And the U.S US as a dynamic, very large, innovative economy. And we continue to lower emissions, even during the last Trump presidency. So no one here wishes this was happening, but

we're going to have to find a way around it. That's a big sigh as you were answering that question. I mean, practically, what does this mean? If he talks about, for example, repealing the Inflation Reduction Act, which shoveled billions of dollars in climate change incentives toward things like renewable energy and electric vehicles, and we know that the largest emissions in the United States

come from the transportation sector, what is that going to mean, practically, for the United States? Well, it's certainly not good. That's for sure. But, yeah, the Inflation Reduction Act is really the first serious federal legislation in 30 years ever, really, to address climate issues. And it spends about $35 billion a year of federal money on climate solutions, essentially. of it's very inefficiently used, as sometimes government funding can be. But some of it's been incredibly helpful for heat pumps, for electric vehicles, for basically encouraging spending. It's kind of a tax break. It's investing money in different things. The U.S. CHIPS Act is probably

even more important in some ways, too. So these investments, which you have to give Joe Biden a lot of credit. He was the first real American leader to figure out how to do climate policy here. It was about carrots, not sticks. He had to put money on the table and show people how this is going to help them, not regulate CO2 emissions. That was never going to politically be tenable in the United States, but to encourage the transition to renewables faster. the transition to renewables faster. But that $35 billion, it's big and it's really important, but it's trivial compared to the size of the private sector's investment in climate. Venture capital alone is about $100 billion a year, three times what the federal government spends, and not to mention private equity and all the investments in states and cities.

So progress on climate is far from going to be dead here. It's just going to be slower and not accelerating the way it could have if Trump gets his way. The other interesting thing though is Republican governors and members of Congress might oppose him on that because most of the money going from the Inflation Reduction Act is going to Republican communities. It's creating jobs in Republican areas. And he might have a hard time actually repealing it. And so, you know, there's a Trump campaign promise and there's an actual Trump presidency. We'll see what happens. Kate, Logan, let's talk about China. China has the highest emissions in the world, also has an enormous and growing renewable sector. Where does China stand in lowering those emissions and meeting emissions targets? sector. Where does China stand in lowering those emissions and meeting emissions targets? Sure. Thanks, Matt. You know, China is obviously the biggest elephant in the room in a lot of ways in these conversations. And I think, you know, to what Jonathan was saying about concerns about

Trump's presidency on one hand, you know, when you look at China, the pace and ambition of China's climate action is really determined primarily by domestic factors. So as you alluded, China is the most massive renewable build-out in the world. But at the same time, they're still adding coal-fired power plants. And the pace and trajectory of China's emissions reductions will really determine whether or not we can keep the Paris Agreement's 1.5-degree target alive. And part of the past experience also suggests that the role of other countries around the world is important for whether or not China moves even faster on its emissions reductions. And there are certainly key challenges, especially from an economic

perspective with China facing a slowdown and also how to manage that in the face of increasing energy consumption. So even though they're adding massive amounts of renewables, integrating these into the grid as fast as possible so that they can cut away at the fossil fuels that are on the grid as well and maintain energy security, those are absolutely immense challenges. And I think, you know, given the results of last week's election in the U.S., one of the things that will be really important is for other key players around the world to sort of step up and vocally raise their expectations for China in this regard. I think, you know, we can expect China, you know, the last time Trump was elected, China was quite vocal in stepping up very quickly and reiterating its strong, firm commitment to multilateralism and the Paris Agreement. And that's been absolutely unwavering. But I think, you know, on one hand, stepping up its commitment to multilateralism, you know, is useful, but

stepping up its actual emissions reductions and accelerating them is another piece. And that's where the EU in particular, some of the other key developing countries like Brazil that holds a G20 presidency and hosting COP next year in 2025 really have a key role to play. So that there is a possibility for the international community to lean on China and say, take a leadership role here or do more. Is that what you're suggesting? Yeah, no, I think that's certainly true. And I think that's where the expectations of the rest of the world are really important. And I would add to the players that I mentioned so far, also the role of vulnerable countries. You know, China is investing massively in developing countries around the world, many of which are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate

change, including islands in the Pacific, you know, least developed countries in Africa, Southeast Asia. And, you know, I think a real test of China's credibility in the multilateral system and whether or not its actions actually match its rhetoric is whether or not it will be a constructive player for the dialogue and the negotiations around the new global climate finance goal that's being negotiated. And to that point, on one hand, China's actually already contributing massive amounts of finance. They're just not captured in the way that that finance is tracked because of the split between developed and developing countries. But if China can show goodwill and work with other countries

to come to a ambitious new goal that sort of captures what it's already doing and motivates it to improve the quality of what it's doing going forward, I think that would send a really important signal. Catherine, where is Canada in all of this? I mean, the country's environmental commissioner, the federal environment commissioner came out with a report last week, says emissions have declined by just over 7% since 2005. It's a long way to go to get to 40% required by 2030. He was suggesting that we have essentially six years to do 20 or 30 years worth of reductions. Does Canada have a hope in reaching those targets? Well, I mean, you asked where does Canada sit in all of this, and so I just want to reflect a little bit on some of what Jonathan and Kate have offered.

First, let's also remember what happened when Trump was elected in 2016 in terms of building out that kind of coalition of countries that could come in and fill that vacuum. It was the EU, yes, as Kate mentioned, who joined up with China, but it was also Canada. They together, China, the EU and Canada created something called the Ministerial on Climate Action, which for years has brought together ministers from all around the world to talk about climate and climate politics just prior to the climate negotiations. So, you know, there's a question there of whether Canada has a role to play in reviving that. So, you know, there's a question there of whether Canada has a role to play in reviving that. I think given some of what we heard from Jonathan in terms of the levels of investments in the U.S. that are being made that are really turning the tide and make it much more difficult for a new president to kind of walk been making some of those investments, but there's a question to ask of whether we're putting the right carrots on the table to drive and accelerate those emissions reductions and that transition to a climate safe economy at the scale and the pace that's needed. How have we been doing so far? Well, it is the case that Canada spent the last few decades missing every climate target that we've had. So we had a lot of catching up to do when this current government got serious about emissions reductions and climate policy.

In 2023, we saw emissions go down about 8% in the EU, which is a huge number. It was about 2% in the United States, largely in thanks to the IRA. And it was about 1% in Canada. So if we look at our major trading partners, we've still got some work to do accelerating those emissions reductions, not just because it's the right thing to do for the climate, but because it is increasingly what we need to be doing to be a major player in the global economy that is moving increasingly toward

that clean climate safe opportunity. And so, you know, those investors who are looking for where to put their money are often looking to put their money in places whose emissions reductions and policies are in line and are predictable for the future. So I think that's actually something that not only our current government, but future prospective governments in Canada need to be paying attention to and asking themselves, can Canada afford to keep losing out on this global momentum and this massive shift that's happening in an economy? Or do we need to step it up and take advantage of those opportunities? Kate, do you see an opportunity for China? Because in addition to, as you mentioned,

coal, it's also the largest generator of renewable energy and creates a lot of the infrastructure for the renewable energy sector. Do you see an opportunity for China to play a bigger role in getting that technology out around the world? Certainly, I think that's a massive opportunity. And I think, you know, one of the key motivations for China right now to take forward its climate action, both in terms of what it's doing domestically as well as internationally, is really leveraging that immense prowess in the renewable energy sector. So I mentioned the climate finance goal. If that pie increases, that will create more market opportunities for China to deploy these technologies faster around the world and help other countries also benefit from these cheaper and more widely available technologies. And, you know, from a domestic perspective, China's been facing a lot of concerns about overcapacity in these sectors, that they're able to deploy faster. You know,

that's a win-win both for some of the economic challenges as well as its emissions trajectory. Jonathan, we're just about out of time, but let me end with you and something that you said at the beginning of our conversation when I introduced you. You said that, I mean, yes, this is a thing in terms of an impact on the fight against climate change, but that you weren't going to throw up your hands. And you've said this, that now is not the time to throw up our hands, it's the time to roll up our sleeves. What keeps you optimistic, despite the setbacks that the U.S. might be facing? I'm optimistic because we already know the endgame. The endgame here is that the world will not go back to the 19th century. We already have solar, wind, batteries. These technologies

are cheaper than fossil fuels. They're better. They're faster and easier to deploy. That is the future. The only question is how quickly can we get there and how much damage do we avoid along the way? That's the race against time that we're in. But we're not going to go back. It's just a question of how quickly we move forward now. And that's what keeps me cautiously optimistic about the future,

is that the world moves slowly, slowly, slowly, then all at once in every change we've ever seen and the game will be won by technology and markets not by politicians and so the politicians can slow things up and muck them up like trump will probably do but the inevitable path towards a renewable energy clean uh climate safe technology future inevitable now. It's just who wants to be there first and how quickly do we all get there? And that die has been cast. It's good to talk to you all about this.

Thank you very much. We will be watching certainly what happens in the next couple of weeks, but those next couple of weeks will influence the next four years as well. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks so much.

Catherine Abreu is director of the International Climate Politics Hub. It's a network of organizations working in climate diplomacy. She's in Baku, Azerbaijan at the COP29 summit. Jonathan Foley is climate scientist and executive director of Project Drawdown. It's a climate solutions organization. He was in Minnesota. And Kate Logan is director with the China Climate Hub Policy Institute.

That's part of the Asia Society Policy Institute. She was in Washington, D.C. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.