‘A colossal own goal’: Trump’s exit from global climate treaties will have little effect outside US
[url]https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jan/09/a-colossal-own-goal-trumps-exit-from-global-climate-treaties-will-have-little-effect-outside-us[/url]
Donald Trump’s latest attack on climate action takes place amid rapidly rising temperatures, rising sea levels, still-rising greenhouse gas emissions, burgeoning costs from extreme weather and the imminent danger that the world will trigger “tipping points” in the climate system that will lead to catastrophic and irreversible changes.
The US president’s decision to withdraw from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the world’s leading body of climate scientists, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, will not alter any of those scientific realities.
Nor will it do much, at least in the short term, to alter the economic reality that the push to a low-carbon world is proving an engine of growth for scores of countries. Global investment in low-carbon energy now outstrips that in fossil fuels by two to one. Taking over Venezuela’s basket-case oil industry will make no perceptible difference.
Simon Stiell, the UN’s climate chief, said US citizens and companies would bear the impact. “It is a colossal own goal which will leave the US less secure and less prosperous,” he said. “It will mean less affordable energy, food, transport and insurance for American households and businesses as renewables keep getting cheaper than fossil fuels, as climate-driven disasters hit American crops, businesses and infrastructure harder each year and as oil, coal and gas volatility drives more conflicts, regional instability and forced migration.”?
While the political aspect of climate action struggles to gain top-level attention in a world beset by conflict, the economics of the low-carbon transition have taken on a life of their own. That may be where Trump’s actions look increasingly, in the words of the former secretary of state John Kerry, like a “self-inflicted wound”.
Investment in low-carbon forms of energy is now above $2tn a year, dwarfing the $1tn spent on fossil fuels. Renewable energy alone grew 15% last year, accounting for more than 90% of all new power generation capacity. Electric vehicles now account for about a fifth of new cars sold around the world. Low-carbon power makes up more than half of the generation capacity of China and India, and China’s exports of low-carbon goods and services topped $20bn in a single month last year.
China is likely to remain committed to its increasingly vibrant low-carbon economy, according to Li Shuo, the director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute. “This commercial dynamism is happening increasingly between China and the global south,” he said. “These economic forces provide a more meaningful counter to Trump [than geopolitics].”
Under Trump, the US risks being left on the sidelines – a position that Kerry called a “gift to China”. The economist Nicholas Stern said: “The economics of the [low-carbon] transition look ever more attractive. Every time we look at the science it looks more worrying, and every time we look at the technology it is more encouraging. In an increasingly insecure world, countries and industries will be seeking independence from fossil fuels and the great volatility such dependence brings. In a world with sluggish growth, countries and industries will be seeking new opportunities. These will be in the technologies of the 21st century, not the 19th and 20thcenturies.”
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[url]https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jan/09/a-colossal-own-goal-trumps-exit-from-global-climate-treaties-will-have-little-effect-outside-us[/url]
Donald Trump’s latest attack on climate action takes place amid rapidly rising temperatures, rising sea levels, still-rising greenhouse gas emissions, burgeoning costs from extreme weather and the imminent danger that the world will trigger “tipping points” in the climate system that will lead to catastrophic and irreversible changes.
The US president’s decision to withdraw from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the world’s leading body of climate scientists, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, will not alter any of those scientific realities.
Nor will it do much, at least in the short term, to alter the economic reality that the push to a low-carbon world is proving an engine of growth for scores of countries. Global investment in low-carbon energy now outstrips that in fossil fuels by two to one. Taking over Venezuela’s basket-case oil industry will make no perceptible difference.
Simon Stiell, the UN’s climate chief, said US citizens and companies would bear the impact. “It is a colossal own goal which will leave the US less secure and less prosperous,” he said. “It will mean less affordable energy, food, transport and insurance for American households and businesses as renewables keep getting cheaper than fossil fuels, as climate-driven disasters hit American crops, businesses and infrastructure harder each year and as oil, coal and gas volatility drives more conflicts, regional instability and forced migration.”?
While the political aspect of climate action struggles to gain top-level attention in a world beset by conflict, the economics of the low-carbon transition have taken on a life of their own. That may be where Trump’s actions look increasingly, in the words of the former secretary of state John Kerry, like a “self-inflicted wound”.
Investment in low-carbon forms of energy is now above $2tn a year, dwarfing the $1tn spent on fossil fuels. Renewable energy alone grew 15% last year, accounting for more than 90% of all new power generation capacity. Electric vehicles now account for about a fifth of new cars sold around the world. Low-carbon power makes up more than half of the generation capacity of China and India, and China’s exports of low-carbon goods and services topped $20bn in a single month last year.
China is likely to remain committed to its increasingly vibrant low-carbon economy, according to Li Shuo, the director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute. “This commercial dynamism is happening increasingly between China and the global south,” he said. “These economic forces provide a more meaningful counter to Trump [than geopolitics].”
Under Trump, the US risks being left on the sidelines – a position that Kerry called a “gift to China”. The economist Nicholas Stern said: “The economics of the [low-carbon] transition look ever more attractive. Every time we look at the science it looks more worrying, and every time we look at the technology it is more encouraging. In an increasingly insecure world, countries and industries will be seeking independence from fossil fuels and the great volatility such dependence brings. In a world with sluggish growth, countries and industries will be seeking new opportunities. These will be in the technologies of the 21st century, not the 19th and 20thcenturies.”
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