Climate Trump and future of NetZero

By withdrawing from the Paris Agreement and effectively removing any environmental constraints to businesses exploiting energy resources, Trump is safeguarding the United States as the global hegemonic oil and gas producer, ahead of Russia and Saudi Arabia.  The development of oil and gas resources in Alaska means that the United States can export across the Pacific to Japan, South Korea and other East Asia energy importers, competing directly with Middle East oil and gas which must be shipped via the Malacca Straits.  

The geopolitics of climate warming is ultimately about which governance model will pay and manage the transition to NetZero. Geoff Mann and Joel Wainwright’s pathbreaking 2019 book, “Climate Leviathan:  A Political Theory of our Planetary Future”, saw four political models to deliver NetZero. These are “Climate Leviathan, Climate Mao, Climate Behemoth, and Climate X.”  Climate Leviathan envisages the present capitalist system that tries to overcome (unsuccessfully) the collective action problem of working together to achieve NetZero. Climate Mao has the same objective, but uses an anti-capitalist order. “Climate Behemoth describes a global arrangement animated by a chauvinistic capitalist and nationalist politics that denies—until it can only denounce—the threat climate change poses to national capitals.” Climate X is a bottom-up movement that is non-capitalist and pursues global climate justice to deliver NetZero.  

With Trump2.0, we can update and re-label the Mann-Wainwright models as Climate Trump, Climate CRINKS, Climate Europa and Climate X or Rest of the World. Climate Trump is ruthlessly capitalist and business friendly, ditching social inclusivity (DEI or diversity, equity and inclusion) or any moral misgivings.  Climate CRINKS comprise the countries that the USA has designated foreign adversaries, namely, China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, as well as Cuba and Venezuela. These countries do not necessarily have the same climate and environmental policies, but they are forced to work in tandem by the perceived threat of US sanctions and tariffs. Climate Europa is geographically the European Union and like-minded nations that prefer the rule of law, current NetZero policies and UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).  Climate X is the rest of the world, who increasingly feel that they are left on their own, with less and less international aid.  The old mantra of “trade, not aid” has no meaning when trade is more protectionist and aid is no longer forthcoming without strings.  

Neoliberals and green activists lament the shift away from a global consensus on climate action, such as the Paris Agreements.  But Climate Trump is a wake-up call for all economies and communities to deal with the top-down ambition of NetZero, by using bottom-up self-help strategies.  The former approach, such as the Global Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), in which the leading banks, fund managers and insurance companies would refuse to lend or invest in companies or countries that do not comply with Net Zero or ESGs, was always more stick than carrot.  With Trump pushing for de-regulation, including in finance, it would not be surprising that more financial institutions and corporate captains retreat in ESG efforts.  

NetZero and social justice are ideals that would be at best contentious, and at worst outright fractious, as the swing to the populist right in recent elections shows. In Germany, the Green Party has lost ground, and the Nordic countries have cut back on aid for developing countries.  As the Chinese record has shown, Beijing moved from one of the most polluted cities to become one with clear skies, as tough policies on moving away from coal to alternative energies have taken root. Globally, there is awareness, particularly amongst the young, that climate and social justice goals are increasingly one, and that good governance is what delivers more social fairness and a cleaner, greener environment. The neo-conservatives who are hawks would simply like to retain military, technological and monetary power to show that might is right.  

The bottom line is how futurist Buckminster Fuller saw in the 1960s and 1970s that Spaceship Earth is transversing a delicate trajectory between nuclear disaster or burning planet. There is no simple path to low carbon economies. According to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) latest report, China accounted for 60% of the new renewable capacity added worldwide in 2023 – and China’s solar PV generation alone is on course to exceed, by the early 2030s, the total electricity demand of the United States today. 

The global rivalry is not just about raw energy power, but the power to print money (energy used for mining cybercurrencies), technology, AI and military power, as well as power to invest in green infrastructure and transition to NetZero. The electrifying power of energy is power to dominate or to change, mitigate and adapt to new planetary challenges. The emergence of cheaper and smaller nuclear plants means that more nations will have cheaper nuclear energy with all their inherent risks. Nuclear technology also proliferates possible nuclear wars waged by smaller countries.  

Hence, despite Trump’s sometimes chaotic and inexplicable verbal exclamations, his actions seem fundamentally anti-war, especially his calls for stopping the Ukraine war and Gaza conflicts. His call for halving defence spending between the US, China and Russia appears on the surface an instinct for stepping away from the nuclear brink.  

In short, if there is controversy over whether NetZero policies will help reverse climate warming, there is also controversy over whether a cut in defence spending to divert resources to non-military uses will be good for the world. The answer is that we do not know. The best AI models will not answer these profoundly human questions.   

Many of us may not welcome Trump as a friend, but we have to grudgingly admit that he has shaken our current beliefs to the core and may yet reshape the international order into a more brutal, but more realistic world with less ideals and more hard, uncomfortable truths. The confrontational world means we have to confront the reality that we either eat lunch or be lunch.