Trump 2.0 and the future of global climate action transcript
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Simon Cullen [00.06] Hello and welcome to the Make Change Happen podcast from the International Institute for Environment and Development. I'm Simon Cullen. Today we're taking a look at what’s next for climate action. And of course, that's a conversation that can't ignore the fact that Donald Trump is back in the White House.
Within hours of being sworn in, he had signed an executive order to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement, which aims to limit global warming to 1.5°C. So what does that mean for the future of climate talks? Does it shift the balance of power away from the United States to China or others? And more broadly, what does this mean for multilateralism – or international cooperation – and the ability of the world to work together on big issues like climate change?
To help us make sense of what's next, I'm joined by Subhi Barakat, IIED's head of global governance and climate diplomacy. Subhi, welcome to the podcast.
Subhi Barakat [01:03] Hi Simon. It's a pleasure to be here.
Simon Cullen [01:05] Well, we're recording this podcast a little over a week into Donald Trump's second term as president. And as I mentioned already, he said that the US will withdraw from the Paris Agreement. Firstly, can you just start by talking us through what does that mean in practice?
Subhi Barakat [01:19] Maybe I start by saying it kind of feels like déjà vu. We've kind of been here before, but at the same time, this is qualitatively different in a few ways. So, when the US decides that it's going to leave the Paris Agreement, it's basically saying, ‘Hey look, there's a global agreement on climate change: how the world is going to work together to one, take action, but in particular, how we're going to finance this transition away from fossil fuels and make sure everybody, everywhere has a fighting chance against climate change and its impacts.’
When the US says, ‘We're withdrawing,’ what you're talking about is the biggest economy, the biggest contributor in terms of funding, in terms of emissions – but basically the most relevant party and economy on climate change and addressing it – saying, ‘We don't really want to be part of this framework’.
Now, that doesn't mean they won't take action: they might do it themselves. That's still, it's still too early to see what that might look like. But what it does mean is, it'll be harder to collaborate, it'll be harder to coordinate. And climate change is a global problem. It doesn't care about borders. It doesn't care about politics. And so you kind of need everyone on the same page working together.
Simon Cullen [02:30] And just to clarify, just because the US is withdrawing from the Paris Agreement doesn't necessarily mean it will also remove it from the broader UN climate process, though, does it?
Subhi Barakat [02:41] Exactly. The Paris Agreement is an agreement within the broader climate framework, and at the heart of it is the UNFCCC – and that's the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Now, the US could decide to also withdraw from that. You might remember, about eight years ago when Trump first when first took office in his first term, he actually threatened to withdraw from both the Paris Agreement and the UNFCCC. In the end, that never happened.
Simon Cullen [03:09] So thinking internationally about what this all means, and then specifically the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, obviously one of the big set piece items every year is the annual climate negotiations. This year it's COP30, being hosted by Brazil. It feels like a setback.
Subhi Barakat [03:26] Yeah, I think it's definitely a setback. For the reasons I mentioned earlier, it's a setback because you have one of the biggest global emitters deciding to not be part of that process. But also, and with a lot of uncertainty and a lot of ambiguity, not clear whether they're going to just take action on their own anyway. Now, if they decide to take ambitious action domestically, that would still be a good thing. But right now that's not clear.
And I think a lot of the signals coming out of the US, and coming from Donald Trump, is that it's more likely that the US starts to undo some of the policies that are trying to decarbonise the US economy, to green the energy infrastructure. And you might actually see the exact opposite: a glut of cheap fossil fuels in the market. And that won't happen overnight, but maybe over the next year or two.
But looking forward to COP30, it's an important process. Brazil is important economy. And typically, when you host one of these events, when you host one of these conferences, you have to find a way to bring everyone together. And when one of the biggest economies and emitters in the world isn't part of it, it's kind of hard to have a coherent approach.
And others might follow suit. This was the risk last time around, and this is more so a risk now as we see at the same time an unravelling of global institutions and faith in multilateralism. And so more countries might decide to go it alone. But right now, the US is the big one.
Simon Cullen [04:56] So Subhi, just picking up on some of the things you talked about there: multilateralism or international cooperation. That's obviously a key element of making these climate talks work, and every year we have – or it seems that we get – growing criticism about the process. And it feels like we're at a bit of a crisis point or a crisis of confidence moment when it comes to multilateralism. Is it therefore time to have a serious rethink about the process when it comes to these COP meetings?
Subhi Barakat [05:28] I think that's a general concern that most people have: is this process delivering? We're now 30 years in: 30 years in since the UNFCCC. What do we have to show for it? A lot of agreements, definitely a lot of progress. But if you look at the news and even just looking at the last month, and you see what's happening in California; you look at what's happening around the world in terms of the impacts, the severity of them.
When you read about the threshold that you mentioned earlier, about 1.5°C – the whole point of the Paris Agreement is to keep global temperatures to 1.5°C. This year we've crossed that threshold already and emissions are still going up.
So to get to your question, I would say it is time to think about how we, how we fix this process.
Now does that mean we start over? That's probably an unrealistic expectation and probably not feasible at this point, considering the dynamics we've just mentioned: the politics, the economics around it. But what does it mean to fix this process? Now that's, that's a bigger question. I would say one thing we probably need to do is think about how this process connects with the wider world: how it connects with civil society, how it connects with special interests, whether it's corporate interests or government interests, fossil fuel interests or otherwise.
What a lot of commentators, what a lot of observers I think are starting to take more notice of, is that there are a lot of interests lobbying at these conferences. And lobbying will always be there and lobbying has always been there. But it seems very prevalent and it seems very visible. That's something that I think has caught people's eyes a lot more, the last few years.
And what hasn't caught their eye, and probably is more of an absence rather than something that you can see, is the diminishing voice of civil society in these processes. Typically, whether it's the lobbying interests and the civil society voices both being strong enough to be countervailing forces, that's a good dynamic. But right now it seems like one side has a lot more power and voice and influence over the process and the other doesn't.
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Simon Cullen [07:33] Well let's just pick up on one of those interests, corporate interests, that you've mentioned. And it feels like it's really quite crucial to focus on this particular element. Because of course there's the increasing power of these corporate interests when it comes to the climate talks, and there's an increasing reliance on private sector money when it comes to reaching climate finance goals. So what are the implications of that, in terms of the influence that these organisations are having now?
Subhi Barakat [08:01] First thing that comes to mind, is that it just gets more complicated. So whereas before, if you think about a couple of decades ago, governments tended to be the main participants. They tended to be the ones providing the most of the funding; they tended to be the ones driving the direction of travel. Now it's moving in the other direction. So it's not just that there is – and to move away from just corporate interests, but the private sector and private interests, generally speaking – they are becoming more influential in a lot of policymaking areas.
Whether it's, if you think more broadly, technology and AI [artificial intelligence] and all these other developments that need regulation – private interests and private funding is now becoming the model. So how do you fund climate change? There's an increasing proportion of funding and influence that comes from the private sector.
Simon Cullen [08:49] So a big part of the climate talks, as you mentioned, is that, that issue of money (and indeed, that's not just the climate talks, but the biodiversity COP as well), and getting that money to the countries most affected by climate change. And I guess the expectation now is that we're going to see far less money from the government of the United States. Donald Trump seems to have made that fairly clear. But also to be fair, we are seeing similar moves in parts of Europe where governments are not providing the financial support needed. So is less money in terms of public money the new reality?
Subhi Barakat [09:22] I think so. That trend is going to continue. There are a few other underlying trends. If we think about the UK for example, as well as the US. In the UK this has already happened, and in the US I think there's an intention to follow along this path, which is to take development funding – traditionally stuff that that went into development – and to fold it into foreign affairs, to fold it into foreign policy.
And so the UK did that by merging the two departments. And the US, I think, is planning to do the same, and I imagine other countries in Europe are about to do the same. So what does this do? This tends to politicise development funding. It tends to shrink the overall budget that will go to development. And it tends to constrain development funding to funding and activities that generally just align with foreign affairs and foreign interests.
But I think that trend is going to continue and a lot of countries are just not able to meet these demands. There are competing, massive demands on public budgets. If you think about just even national decarbonisation, you're talking about a few per cent of GDP for each country just to meet the basic demands of infrastructure and decarbonisation.
Simon Cullen [10:33] So then where does that leave the Small Island Developing States and the least developed countries? So you and your team at IIED provide support to some of these countries at the climate talks. So should these countries be concerned by the shift that we're seeing?
Subhi Barakat [10:47] Concerned might not be the right word, but I think they need to be cautious. The reality is that many of the countries that we work with and the countries that you just mentioned – whether it's small island developments or least developed countries – these are countries that typically have severe financial constraints.
And so they depend, a lot, on a lot of this multilateral funding and development funding that comes from governments. And increasingly what you're seeing is some of that funding being, being channelled through private sector funds and private sector actors. And that makes it a little bit more difficult to achieve longer-term objectives.
Simon Cullen [11:23] So if we think about the geopolitical environment that we're now in, it does feel like the US is vacating the international stage at some level. So what country or countries fill that void when it comes to shaping climate negotiations going forward, do you think?
Subhi Barakat [11.38] I think we've already been seeing that for, for a good 5-10 years – and it's China. China's doing that at every level and I think it isn't just in climate, it is in geopolitics generally. I'll probably link this also generally to the trends that you see over the last decade or two, of developing economies and emerging markets generally representing, I would say, three quarters or maybe four fifths of global growth. And that's been consistent for the last 5-10 years at least.
Simon Cullen [12:12] So when we think about organisations like IIED and others that are working in the sustainable, equitable international development space, do we need to change our strategy in response to these global political shifts that we're seeing?
Subhi Barakat [12:25] I'd step back up for a minute and just say, any strategy that isn't responsive to these kinds of changes is unlikely to be a successful one in the long run. One of the things that I would say is that IIED, as an organisation that works on global issues generally – and my team that works on global policy almost exclusively – these are the kinds of trends and moments that we're always trying to keep track of.
And so we're always refining our approach to make sure that we stay relevant, to make sure that these currents are things that we understand and can react to in a positive way. But sometimes these things move in unexpected ways. And we live in a world that's very volatile now and it's a very transactional world in terms of geopolitics. It's very uncertain, ambiguous. And so it makes it hard to know which way to pivot or shift your strategy.
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Simon Cullen [13:22] Subhi, I guess one final question, given that all we've talked about here. I can imagine that some listeners might be feeling a little bit despondent about where things are headed. What gives you hope that we will still see climate and nature action in the year ahead?
Subhi Barakat [13:38] The thing that gives me hope is that, at the same time that we see a lot more isolationist policies, at the same time that we're seeing an undermining of multilateral institutions and faith in the rule of law – and we see that across the board, it isn't just climate policy. At the same time that we see those things, they tend to be concentrated in more official policy.
But on the ground, if you see what civil society is doing, if you see what organisations are doing – either who are on the front lines working on these issues, or like our organisation that works on the policies and works with the communities that face these issues – they see things slightly differently. There are always opportunities.
And one of the things that I'll take from the finance world, which I think is a brilliant way to always stay positive: where there's uncertainty, I mean, those are the moments where you have more freedom and more creativity to find new ways of doing things. The more stagnant things are, the harder it is to break, break away and do things differently. And so civil society, I think, sees the challenges and they see some opportunities. And now the question is, how will they organise? How will they move forward? And how will they connect these various issues?
Politics will always change, and so this is just another era. And every era sounds like or feels like it's going to be different. But one thing is always the same and that's change. And that's why we have to always be nimble and dynamic and respond to some of these events in ways that make us more effective.
Simon Cullen [15:13] Yeah, it's very good to be reminded of that. Subhi Barakat, thank you for making time to join the Make Change Happen podcast.
Subhi Barakat [15:21] Thank you, Simon, it's a pleasure. Hope we can do it again.
Simon Cullen [15:24] Well for more information about IIED's climate work, or to listen to past episodes of our podcast, go to our website: iied.org. Thanks for listening.
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