Major gaps exist among countries in the developed and developing world about how to collectively bring down emissions, mitigate the calamitous effects posed by a warming planet and fund these efforts. In some Western democracies, there is growing backlash against policies deemed green, with voters resenting onerous carbon taxes, the loss of fuel subsidies and the prospect of strict environmental regulations that raise household costs.
Meanwhile, warnings on Earth are blaring at full pitch. Scientists predict that this year will be the hottest on record, dethroning 2023 as the champion. “It will also probably be the first full calendar year when temperatures rose more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial average — a critical line signaling that Earth is crossing into territory where some extreme climate effects may be irreversible,” noted my colleague Kasha Patel.
And then there’s the shadow of Trump. For his first term, he withdrew from the Paris climate accords, whose principles and goals underpin the COP meetings; he is said to do so again. He has dismissed the science of climate change as a “hoax,” attempted to de-fund climate research, and mocked Democratic efforts to grapple with it — such as Biden’s gargantuan Inflation Reduction Act — as a “scam.” And he has pledged to “drill, baby, drill” even while the United States produces more oil and gas than it ever has. Lee Zeldin, Trump’s choice to run the Environmental Protection Agency, and Doug Burgum, named to be Trump’s “energy czar,” could rescind hundreds of climate-focused regulations at the federal level, eliminate subsidies for clean energy, and open previously off-limits drilling on federal lands.
warnings on Earth are blaring at full pitch
could repeal myriad climate-focused regulations at the federal level,
Climate activists project a message onto Tower Bridge in London with a silhouette of Trump, ahead of COP29Â
