Given the enormous significance of the US election result, not only for America itself but for us in the UK and the rest of the world, we will be devoting a number of articles in the coming week to the implications of Trump’s victory.
We asked our regular writers to write a brief piece sharing their reactions to the election outcome, and we have compiled their responses into three articles, covering, broadly, the implications for the UK; for the politics of climate change and the environment; and for immigrant communities and Ukraine.
This is the second in the series, and we will be publishing the third piece tomorrow (Tuesday).
Trump doesn’t give a damn about the future of the world – Ross McNally
Trump’s victory this week, bolstered by Republican control of the Senate and probably the House of Representatives too, augurs environmental calamity on a global scale. His flagrant climate denial and disregard for the living world likely close the window of possibility for limiting global heating to 2°C above pre-industrial levels.
The US is among the top emitters of greenhouse gases in the world, both nationally and per capita. As such, it’s vital that the next administration is laser-focused on the transition to net zero, by leaving fossil fuels in the ground, investing in clean energy and public transport, and reducing the production and consumption of meat and dairy. Trump has made clear his intentions to do precisely the opposite, doubling down on oil production as well as destroying other environmental regulations preventing the pollution of air and water, as he did during his first term.
Trump has always been upfront about the fact that he doesn’t give a damn about the world in which your children and future generations will have to live. This isn’t merely a question of skinny polar bears, but of major crop failures in the world’s breadbasket regions, mass migration of hundreds of millions of people due to drought, deadly heat, natural disasters and associated conflicts. Unfortunately, demagogues like Trump, who even his former chief of staff John Kelly said met the definition of a fascist, may continue to do well out of this.
Electoral politics has failed for decades to avert the greatest existential crisis we face as a species. This latest result affirms that failure. The only hope now for preventing the worst of the climate and ecological disaster is direct action and civil disobedience the world over. In Trump’s America, that will require courage and solidarity.
The prospect of the most powerful man on earth being a climate change denier is terrifying – Dorothy Smith
The clear victory of Donald Trump is depressing for all of us who dread the consequences of a right-wing US regime likely to be characterised by both racism and sexism. However, the most important impact of the next Trump administration will be its inevitable drag on the efforts to achieve a global transition to clean energy, with dangerous implications for climate change and for human life on this planet.
The US is the world’s largest economy and, unsurprisingly, the second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, after China, with India and the countries of the EU in 3rd and 4th place. The UN Environment Programme, in their Emissions Gap report published in October 2024, found that “countries must deliver dramatically stronger ambition and action in the next round of Nationally Determined Contributions, or the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C goal will be gone within a few years.”
The Trump campaign threatened that, if re-elected, he will once again pull the US out of the Paris climate change agreement, causing UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to warn of a “crippled” Paris accord. According to Politico, a draft executive order has been prepared that would remove the US from the entire UN framework of global climate negotiations, which could do lasting damage to efforts to limit global heating.
Trump has also promised to reverse key elements of President Joe Biden’s green policies, including yet unspent funds under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). However, Andy Brown, of Orsted, a UK investor in offshore wind and President of the UK Energy Institute, speaking on the BBC Today programme on 7 November, noted that much of this funding was creating jobs in Republican states and that during Trump’s last period as President, solar and wind power in the US had actually increased by 66%.
Reuters appeared to confirm that “a Biden-era law providing a decade of lucrative subsidies for new solar wind and other clean-energy projects would be near-impossible to repeal…thanks to support from Republican states. They had previously reported that most of these grants will be spent by the time the Trump administration takes office.
There are, therefore, perhaps some modest grounds for hoping that the worst impacts of Trump’s instincts in relation to green energy may be constrained, but there is no doubt that progress will be, at best, slowed down, and Trump has committed to “Drill baby drill” in relation to fossil fuels which need to stay in the ground.
As the tragic Valencia floods have reminded us, climate change threatens everyone, everywhere. Recent events in Florida have shown that this applies to Trump’s heartland as well, but he remains delusional that its effects are “weather”. The prospect of the most powerful man on the planet being a climate change denier is nothing short of terrifying. There is also no doubt that it is the poorest individuals within countries, and younger generations, who will suffer the most.
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