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The Trump presidency, climate change, and the prospect of a disorderly energy transition

Part of: RIS Trump collection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 October 2018

Jan Selby
Jan Selby*
Affiliation:
Professor of International Relations, University of Sussex
*
*Corresponding author. Email: j.selby@sussex.ac.uk
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Abstract

This article reflects on the implications of the Trump presidency for global anthropogenic climate change and efforts to address it. Existing commentary, predicated on liberal institutionalist reasoning, has argued that neither Trump’s promised rollback of domestic climate-related funding and regulations, nor withdrawal from the Paris framework, will be as impactful as often feared. While broadly concurring, I nonetheless also in this article take a wider view, to argue that the Trump administration is likely to exacerbate several existing patterns and trends. I discuss four in particular: the general inadequacy of global greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets and implementation efforts; the inadequacy of contemporary climate financing; the embrace between populist conservatism and opposition to action on climate change; and not least, the current global oil and gas boom which, crucially, is being led by the US. I submit that these patterns and trends, and the Trump administration’s likely contributions to them, do not augur well for climate change mitigation, let alone for an orderly transition to a low-carbon global economy. Given current directions of travel, I suggest, this coming transition is likely to be deeply conflict-laden – probably violently so – and to have consequences that will reverberate right across mid-twentieth-century international order.

Keywords

Donald TrumpClimate ChangeEnergy TransitionConflict
Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 45 , Issue 3 , July 2019 , pp. 471 - 490
Copyright
© British International Studies Association 2018 

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References

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11 On the Trump administration’s racialised response to Maria and its historical context see, for example, Frances Negrón-Muntaner, ‘The crisis in Puerto Rico is a racial issue: Here’s why’, The Root (10 October 2017), available at: {http://www.theroot.com/the-crisis-in-puerto-rico-is-a-racial-issue-here-s-why-1819380372}; and Pedro Caban, ‘Catastrophe and colonialism’, Jacobin Magazine (12 December 2017), available at: {https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/12/puerto-rico-hurricane-maria-trump-us-status-history}. On the electricity crisis see, for example, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, ‘Puerto Rico: Human Rights Concerns Mount in Absence of Adequate Emergency Response’ (30 October 2017), available at: {http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=22326&LangID=E}; and on the death toll from Maria, Frances Robles et al., ‘Official death toll from Maria: 64. Actual deaths may be 1,052’, New York Times (9 December 2017), available at: {https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/08/us/puerto-rico-hurricane-maria-death-toll.html}; and Santos-Lozada, Alexis, ‘In Puerto Rico, counting deaths and making deaths count’, Health Affairs, 37:4 (2018), pp. 520–522 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

12 See, for example, Mary Robinson’s statement in ‘The Elders Condemn US for Quitting Paris Climate Agreement’, available at: {https://theelders.org/article/elders-condemn-us-quitting-paris-climate-agreement-no-one-country-can-dismantle-it}.

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21 John Broder, ‘“Cap and trade” loses its standing as energy policy of choice’, New York Times (25 March 2010), available at: {http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/science/earth/26climate.html}.

22 Adam Liptak and Coral Davenport, ‘Supreme court deals blow to Obama’s efforts to regulate coal emissions’, New York Times (9 February 2016), available at: {https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/10/us/politics/supreme-court-blocks-obama-epa-coal-emissions-regulations.html?smid=pl-share}.

23 For discussion of this contested issue, see, for example, Josh Busby, ‘The Paris agreement: When is a treaty not a treaty?’, Global Policy blog (26 April 2016), available at: {http://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/26/04/2016/paris-agreement-when-treaty-not-treaty}; Sam Mulopulos, ‘Why the Paris agreement is a treaty’, Huffington Post (5 November 2016), available at: {https://www.huffingtonpost.com/young-professionals-in-foreign-policy/why-the-paris-climate-agr_b_9914606.html}; Eugene Kontorovich, ‘The US can’t quit the Paris agreement, because it never actually joined’, The Washington Post (1 July 2017), available at: {https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/06/01/the-u-s-cant-quit-the-paris-climate-agreement-because-it-never-actually-joined/?utm_term=.23e18c0f64e3}.

24 Brad Plumer, ‘Rick Perry’s plan to rescue struggling coal and nuclear plants is rejected’, New York Times (8 January 2018), available at: {https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/08/climate/trump-coal-nuclear.html}.

25 Mark Hand, ‘Climate, environmental programs left mostly untouched in budget deal’, Think Progress (1 May 2017), available at: {https://thinkprogress.org/climate-environmental-programs-left-mostly-untouched-in-budget-deal-3742f7bad9c5/}.

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30 Jorge Amigo, ‘Renewable Energy in Oil-Intensive Jurisdictions: A Comparative Study of Wind Energy Growth in Texas and Alberta’ (MA thesis, University of British Columbia, 2011).

31 Lutsey and Sperling, ‘America’s bottom-up climate change mitigation policy’, pp. 675, 683; Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, ‘Greenhouse Gas Emissions Targets’, available at: {https://www.c2es.org/document/greenhouse-gas-emissions-targets/}. More broadly on the unevenness of US state climate policies, see Harrison, Kathryn, ‘Federalism and climate policy innovation: a critical reassessment’, Canadian Public Policy, 39:S2 (2013), pp. S95–S108 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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33 On the US Climate Alliance see: {https://www.usclimatealliance.org/}; and on We Are Still In, available at: {https://www.wearestillin.com/about}. See also Bloomberg Philanthropies, America’s Pledge, Phase 1 Report: States, Cities, and Businesses in the United States Are Stepping Up on Climate Action (November 2017), available at: {https://www.americaspledgeonclimate.com/}; New Climate Institute and Climate Group, States, Cities and Businesses Leading the Way: A First Look at Decentralized Climate Commitments in the US (September 2017), available at: {https://newclimate.org/2017/09/13/states-cities-and-businesses-leading-the-way-a-first-look-at-decentralized-climate-commitments-in-the-us/}; the Ready for 100 initiative, available at: {https://www.sierraclub.org/ready-for-100/commitments}.

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43 Ibid., p. 636.

44 IPCC, Climate Change 2014, Summary for Policymakers, p. 10, available at: {https://www.co2.earth/} provides a useful tracking of atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

45 Rogelj et al., ‘Paris agreement climate proposals need a boost’; Climate Action Tracker, ‘Effect of Current Pledges and Policies on Global Temperature’, available at: {http://climateactiontracker.org/global.html}.

46 Committee on Climate Change, An Independent Assessment of the UK’s Clean Growth Strategy: From Ambition to Action (January 2018), available at: {https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/independent-assessment-uks-clean-growth-strategy-ambition-action/}; Jocelyn Timperley, ‘“Worrying trend” in UK emissions cuts beyond power and waste, says CCC’, Carbon Brief (28 June 2018), available at: https://www.carbonbrief.org/worrying-trend-uk-emission-cuts-beyond-power-waste-says-ccc.

47 Ibid., p. 24.

48 See, for example, Kerstine Appunn, ‘Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions and climate targets’, Clean Energy Wire (1 February 2018), available at: {https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-greenhouse-gas-emissions-and-climate-targets}; Paul Hockenos, ‘Germany is a coal-burning, gas-guzzling climate change hypocrite’, Foreign Policy (13 November 2017), available at: {http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/11/13/germany-is-a-coal-burning-gas-guzzling-climate-change-hypocrite/}; Arthur Wyns, ‘German grand coalition agrees on climate and energy policy’, Climate Tracker (6 February 2018), available at: {http://climatetracker.org/german-grand-coalition-agrees-climate-energy-policy/}.

49 European Environment Agency, ‘Greenhouse Gas Emissions across EU Drop Slightly in 2016’ (7 November 2017), available at: {https://www.eea.europa.eu/highlights/greenhouse-gas-emissions-across-eu}.

50 ‘Japan 2017’, Climate Action Tracker (6 November 2017), available at: {http://climateactiontracker.org/countries/japan.html}.

51 Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, ‘US Emissions’, available at: {https://www.c2es.org/content/u-s-emissions/}; US Environmental Protection Agency, Inventory of US Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks 1990–2015 (EPA, 2017), available at: {https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/inventory-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions-and-sinks-1990-2015 Google Scholar};

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52 ‘China 2017’, Climate Action Tracker (6 November 2017), available at: {http://climateactiontracker.org/countries/china.html}.

53 See, for example, Fergus Green, ‘Why the ratchet mechanism is (almost) everything in Paris’, Inside Story (11 December 2015), available at: {http://insidestory.org.au/why-the-ratchet-mechanism-is-almost-everything-in-paris/}.

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56 See for example, Ciplet et al., Power in a Warming World, ch. 3.

57 UNFCCC, Copenhagen Accord, Report No. FCCC/CP/2009/11/Add.1 (18 December 2009), Art. 8, available at: {https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2009/cop15/eng/11a01.pdf}.

58 UNFCCC, Adoption of the Paris Agreement, Art. 115.

59 Roadmap to US $100 Billion (24 October 2016), available at: {https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/climate-finance-roadmap-to-us100-billion}. This report is lead produced by the UK and Australian governments, with input from many others. On the lack of agreement and concerns, see especially J. Timmons Roberts and Romain Weikmans, ‘Roadmap to where? Is the “$100 billion by 2020” pledge from Copenhagen still realistic?’, Brookings Institute blog (20 October 2016), available at: {https://www.brookings.edu/blog/planetpolicy/2016/10/20/roadmap-to-where-is-the-100-billion-by-2020-pledge-from-copenhagen-still-realistic/}; and Roberts, J. Timmons and Weikmans, Romain, ‘Postface: fragmentation, failing trust and enduring tensions over what counts as climate finance’, International Environmental Agreements, 17:1 (2017), pp. 129–137 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

60 Roberts and Weikmans, ‘Postface’, p. 130.

61 GCF, ‘Report on Post-Approval Status of Approved Funding Proposals’, Document GCF/B.18/08 (14 September 2017), p. 5, available at: {https://www.greenclimate.fund/documents/20182/820027/GCF_B.18_08_-_Report_on_post-approval_status_of_approved_funding_proposals.pdf/100b60e4-b5ce-42a5-ba48-063464aceb2b}.

62 Urpelainen and van de Graaf, ‘United States non-cooperation and the Paris agreement’, pp. 5–6.

63 Wacket, ‘France and UK vow to make up for Trump’s withdrawal of climate change funding’; Megan Darby, ‘Macron summit touts green finance progress – despite Trump’, Climate Home News (13 December 2017), available at: {http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/12/13/macron-summit-touts-green-finance-progress-despite-trump/}.

64 Dunlap, Riley and McCright, Aaron, ‘A widening gap: Republican and Democratic views on climate change’, Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, 50:5 (2008), pp. 26–35 Google Scholar; Dunlap, Riley et al., ‘The political divide on climate change: partisan polarization widens in the US’, Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, 58:5 (2016), pp. 4–23 Google Scholar.

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68 Ibid., p. 1168.

69 Andrew Prokop, ‘Don’t just blame Trump for quitting the Paris deal – blame the Republican Party’, Vox (1 June 2017), available at: {https://www.vox.com/2017/6/1/15726726/trump-paris-climate-agreement-republicans}.

70 Tim McDonnell, ‘Scientists: Ted Cruz’s climate theories are a “load of claptrap”’, Mother Jones (18 March 2015), available at: {http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/03/ted-cruz-seth-myers-climate-change/#}; Samantha Page, ‘Ted Cruz: “Climate change is not science: It’s religion”’, Think Progress (30 October 2015), available at: {https://thinkprogress.org/ted-cruz-climate-change-is-not-science-its-religion-70987f13959c/}; Rebecca Leber, ‘Marco Rubio is (now) the most dangerous GOP candidate on climate’, New Republic (7 October 2015), available at: {https://newrepublic.com/article/123051/marco-rubio-now-most-dangerous-gop-candidate-climate}. For an overview of positions see, for example, Emma Foehringer Merchant, ‘How the 2016 presidential candidates view climate change’, New Republic (30 November 2015), available at: {https://newrepublic.com/article/124381/2016-presidential-candidates-view-climate-change}.

71 Phil McKenna, ‘GOP and democratic platforms highlight stark differences on energy and climate’, Inside Climate News (26 July 2016), available at: {https://insideclimatenews.org/news/26072016/democrat-republican-party-platforms-energy-climate-change-hillary-clinton-donald-trump; the document is available at: {https://www.gop.com/the-2016-republican-party-platform/}.

72 Julia Jacobo, ‘Reactions swift after Trump’s withdrawal from Paris climate accord’, ABC News (1 June 2017), available at: {http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/public-figures-react-trumps-decision-withdraw-paris/story?id=47767113}. On the pre-decision lobbying, see, for example, Tom McCarthy and Lauren Gambino, ‘The Republicans who urged Trump to pull out of Paris deal are big oil darlings’, The Guardian (1 June 2017), available at: {https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/01/republican-senators-paris-climate-deal-energy-donations?CMP=twt_gu}.

73 Zack Colman, ‘Republican “climate caucus” offered little support for Paris deal’, Climate Home News (2 June 2017), available at: {http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/06/02/republican-climate-caucus-offered-little-support-paris-deal/}.

74 Ryan Schleeter, ‘5 Real Things Mike Pence Has Said About Climate Change’, Greenpeace (15 July 2016), available at: {http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/5-real-things-mike-pence-has-said-about-climate-change/}.

75 Jocelyn Timperley, ‘German elections 2017: Where the parties stand on energy and climate change’, Climate Brief (21 September 2017), available at: {https://www.carbonbrief.org/german-election-2017-where-parties-stand-on-energy-climate-change}; Jon Henley, ‘Norway goes to the polls with the future of its oil and gas industry in play’, The Guardian (10 September 2017), available at: {https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/10/norway-goes-polls-future-oil-gas-industry-green-party-kingmaker}; ‘Where Brexit and climate-change scepticism converge’, The Economist (22 March 2016), available at: {https://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2016/03/economics-and-politics}. See also Matthew Lockwood, ‘Right-wing populism and the climate change agenda: Exploring the linkages’, Environmental Politics (online first, 2018).

76 Brechin, Steven, ‘Public opinion: a cross-national view’, in Constance Lever-Tracy (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Climate Change and Society (London: Routledge, 2010), pp. 179–209 Google Scholar; Painter, James and Ashe, Teresa, ‘Cross-national comparison of the presence of climate scepticism in the print media in six countries, 2007–10’, Environmental Research Letters, 7:4 (2012)Google Scholar; Young, Nathan and Coutinho, Aline, ‘Government, anti-reflexivity and the construction of public ignorance about climate change: Australia and Canada compared’, Global Environmental Politics, 13:2 (2013), pp. 89–108 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tranter, Bruce and Booth, Kate, ‘Scepticism in a changing climate: a cross-national study’, Global Environmental Change, 33 (2015), pp. 154–164 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

77 Young and Coutinho, ‘Government, anti-reflexivity and the construction of public ignorance about climate change’.

78 Dunlap, Riley and McCright, Aaron, ‘Organized climate change denial’, in John Dryzek et al. (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 144–160 Google Scholar; McCright, Aaron and Dunlap, Riley, ‘Anti-reflexivity: the American conservative movement’s success in undermining climate science and policy’, Theory, Culture and Society, 27:2–3 (2010), p. 101 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. It should be noted, though, that on some scores the US is not such an extreme outlier: see, for example, Jacob Poushter and Dorothy Manevich, ‘Globally, People Point to ISIS and Climate Change as Leading Security Threats’, Pew Research Center (1 August 2017), available at: {http://www.pewglobal.org/2017/08/01/globally-people-point-to-isis-and-climate-change-as-leading-security-threats/}.

79 On the former see, for example, Heath, Yuko and Gifford, Robert, ‘Free-market ideology and environmental degradation: the case of belief in climate change’, Environment and Behavior, 38:1 (2006), pp. 48–71 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Oreskes, Naomi and Conway, Erik, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming (London: Bloomsbury, 2010)Google Scholar; on the latter see, for example, Griffiths, Tom and Robin, Libby (eds), Ecology and Empire: Environmental History of Settler Societies (Keele: Keele University Press, 1997)Google Scholar.

80 See, generally, for example, Meyer, Jane, Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right (London: Penguin, 2016)Google Scholar; and MacLean, Nancy, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America (London: Scribe, 2017)Google Scholar; and in relation to climate change specifically, for example, Klein, Naomi, This Change Everything: Capitalism Versus the Climate (London: Penguin, 2015)Google Scholar.

81 On the roots of the Tea Party movement, see especially, Skocpol, Theda and Williamson, Vanessa, The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

82 McCright and Dunlap, ‘Anti-reflexivity’, p. 105

83 See, for example, Kimmel, Michael, Angry White Men: American Masculinity at the End of an Era (New York: Nation Books, 2013)Google Scholar; Parkin, William et al., ‘Tea Party mobilization and power devaluation’, Sociological Spectrum, 35:4 (2015), pp. 329–348 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gammon, Earl, ‘Narcissistic rage and neoliberal reproduction’, Global Society, 31:4 (2017), pp. 510–530 CrossRefGoogle Scholar

84 On methodological nationalism, see especially, Martins, Herminio, ‘Time and theory in sociology’, in John Rex (ed.), Approaches to Sociology: An Introduction to Major Trends in British Sociology (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974), pp. 246–294 Google Scholar; and Wimmer, Andreas and Schiller, Nina Glick, ‘Methodological nationalism and beyond: Nation-state building, migration and the social sciences’, Global Networks, 2:4 (2002), pp. 301–334 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I discuss this issue in relation to other aspects of climate change research in Selby, Jan, ‘Positivist climate conflict research: a critique’, Geopolitics, 19:4 (2014), pp. 829–856 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

85 White House Office of the Press Secretary, ‘Statement by President Trump on the Paris Climate Accord’.

86 Colin Campbell, ‘Trump: I was joking when I said the Chinese “created” the concept of climate change’, Business Insider (18 January 2016), available at: {http://uk.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-china-created-climate-change-2016-1?r=US&IR=T}. The tweet in question is available at: {https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/265895292191248385} (6 November 2012).

87 Kate Aronoff, ‘Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen, and the dangers of “eco-nationalism”’, In These Times (11 December 2015), available at: {http://inthesetimes.com/article/18676/trump_le_pen_front_national_paris_climate_change_talks_and_econationalism}.

88 Helm, Dieter, Burnout: The Endgame for Fossil Fuels (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017)Google Scholar, ch. 4.

89 Figures calculated from the US Energy Information Administration’s ‘International Energy Statistics’, available at: {https://www.eia.gov/beta/international/data/browser/}. The projections are from International Energy Agency, World Energy Outlook 2017 (IEA, 2017): available at: {https://www.iea.org/weo2017/}.

90 ‘US spending bill lifts 40-year ban on crude oil exports’, BBC News (18 December 2015), available at: {http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35136831}; Hogan Lovells, ‘LNG exports – a rare case of policy continuity from Obama to Trump’, Lexology (8 May 2017), available at: {https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=c5630c16-16b2-48d3-8d18-d60880c109b7}.

91 President Obama’s 2012 State of the Union address (24 January 2012), available at: {http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/01/24/us/politics/state-of-the-union-2012-video-transcript.html}.

92 Warner, Barbara and Shapiro, Jennifer, ‘Fractured, fragmented federalism: a study in fracking regulatory policy’, Publius: The Journal of Federalism, 43:3 (2013), pp. 474–496 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rabe, Barry, ‘Shale play politics: the intergovernmental odyssey of American shale governance’, Environmental Science and Technology, 48:15 (2014), pp. 8369–8375 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

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94 Ramón Alvarez et al., ‘Assessment of methane emissions from the US oil and gas supply chain’, Science (2018).

95 McGlade, Christophe and Ekins, Paul, ‘Un-burnable oil: an examination of oil resource utilisation in a decarbonised energy system’, Energy Policy, 64 (2014), pp. 102–112 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McGlade, Christophe and Ekins, Paul, ‘The geographical distribution of fossil fuels unused when limiting global warming to 2 °C’, Nature, 517 (2015), pp. 187–190 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

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100 Malm, Fossil Capital; Douglas Burgess, Engines of Empire: Steamships and the Victorian Imagination (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2016)Google Scholar.

101 See, for example, Gillingham, John, Industry and Politics in the Third Reich: Ruhr Coal, Hitler and Europe (London: Methuen, 1985)Google Scholar.

102 Mitchell, Carbon Democracy.

103 See, for example, Painter, David, ‘Oil and the American century’, Journal of American History, 99:1 (2012), pp. 24–39 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bromley, Simon, American Hegemony and World Oil: The Industry, The State System and the World Economy (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991)Google Scholar.

104 See, for example, Lake, David, ‘British and American hegemony compared: Lessons for the current era of decline’, in Jeffry Frieden and David Lake (eds), International Political Economy: Perspectives on Global Wealth and Power (4th edn, London: Routledge, 2014), pp. 127–140 Google Scholar.

105 On the powers conferred by fossil fuels, see especially, Malm, Fossil Capital.

106 Betsill, ‘Trump’s Paris withdrawal’, p. 190.

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110 Layne, Christopher, ‘The US-Chinese power shift and the end of Pax Americana’, International Affairs, 94:1 (2018), pp. 89–111 CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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