Trump win worries global partners ahead of COP29 climate summit: ‘a slap in the face’

Trump has called climate change a hoax, plans to withdraw the US from the 2015 Paris climate agreement at the start of his second presidency

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Supporters of Vice-President Kamala Harris linger at the event site after she conceded the US presidential race at Howard University the day after Election Day. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 9:04pm, 7 Nov 2024

Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election has darkened the outlook for a strong deal at the COP29 climate summit next week and will increase pressure on Europe and China to lead international progress in curbing planetary warming, according to climate negotiators.

Trump, who has called climate change a hoax, has said he plans to withdraw the US from the landmark 2015 Paris climate agreement at the start of his second presidency, and his policy advisers have floated removing the US from the underlying UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) ratified by the US Senate in 1992.

Climate negotiators and observers preparing for the COP29 conference from November 11 to 22 in Baku, Azerbaijan, said Trump’s decisive win over Vice-President Kamala Harris in Tuesday’s poll reduces the ability of countries to agree a new global finance target, or increase the pool of countries that should contribute – goals for the summit.

Front pages of Italian newspapers in Rome reporting on Donald Trump’s win in the US presidential election. Photo: AP

The EU and US had planned to push China and rich Gulf states to start paying into UN climate funds.

“Pushing for more ambitious climate finance is going to be almost impossible without the US buy-in, which will demotivate developing countries from taking seriously the climate ambitions of the West,” said Elisabetta Cornago, a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform.

Jennifer Morgan, Germany’s state secretary for international climate action, said it will be up to Germany and the European Union to maintain leadership in the climate finance discussions to ensure an acceptable result.

However, on Thursday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz cancelled plans to attend COP29, a chancellery spokesperson confirmed to Reuters, due to an unfolding political crisis at home.

Failure to land a strong climate finance deal would be a particularly big setback for the 45-country group of Least Developed Countries in UN climate negotiations, which is demanding countries pay up.