That the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States is over surely doesn’t mean that the worst of divisive politics is over and that it is now back to normality as we know it.
Judging by his address to the thousands that flocked the Mall in Washington for his swearing in there seems to be little to cling on that Trump’s aggressive talk with its protectionist mantra was just sheer electioneering meant to flock millions of disgruntled voters to his side. It looks like it that Trump was not really playing to the tune of the politics of emotion.
His ‘America First’, repeated at least twice, reminisces of a siege mentality previously unheard of by any US president. As if this man, going solo, wants to insulate the world’s biggest economy, the most influential one, into a cocoon countering globalisation with the promise that home-grown American industry will rejuvenate and millions of jobs restored.
After all it was this that ultimately brought down the neo-liberal elite in the White House, their inability to set the right priorities and squandering the wealth of the US middle class to help strengthen the economies abroad at the expense of the US. At least that is the state of his nation according to Trump.
Not many hours had passed since internet portals had circulated that the White House climate change portal could no longer be found. Only to have a fresh America First statement on US energy policy endorsing reinvigorated efforts towards coal, oil and shale gas extraction while making absolutely no mention of renewables.
There is no mincing of words. A section of the statement goes: “President Trump is committed to eliminating harmful and unnecessary policies such as the Climate Action Plan.” Obama’s climate plan was designed in sync with the deal with China to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions as the world leaders geared up towards Paris COP21 that brought to light the new climate agreement.
The energy plan further clarifies that: “The Trump Administration is also committed to clean coal technology, and to reviving America’s coal industry, which has been hurting for too long.”
Music to the ears of Wyoming, West Virginia, Kentucky and Pennsylvania, the coal-rich states that all voted for Trump. The commitment on clean coal technology presumably encompasses carbon capture, both storage and utilisation, the science of which is still being explored but more so in terms of economic viability.
At face value, it is not the Trump administration apparent fetishising with clean coal technology that should make the climate scientists worry – the Paris agreement is carefully worded to allow enough elbow room for this kind of technology to develop in a subtle recognition that it shall probably be indispensable to ensure that the carbon emission targets are achieved.
It is the America First drive towards having more coal dug out of the ground that should bring the shivers when global temperature rise is ominously approaching the 20C tipping point.
The world holds its breath as the Trump administration parts its first shots from the Oval Office, while neo-liberals struggle to heal the wounds
Climate scientists from the Met Office Hadley Centre in the UK have recently concorded with Nasa observations that 2016 was yet again another hottest year on record with global average temperature rise estimated at 1.10C compared to pre-industrial. The global carbon budget, that amount of carbon we can afford to emit within the 20C safe warming bracket, will probably have to be reviewed accordingly.
But climate science technicalities aside, there are other more immediate and more stinging matters upon which the Trump administration is anxiously being awaited to act and that includes the stock way forward of the US with the Paris Climate Agreement itself.
Should the US backtrack on the commitments already entered into by Obama – and the latest energy policy statement is anything but reassuring – the entire global climate regime would be plunged into an unprecedented crisis, far worse than the US scepticism on Kyoto.
From a purely political standpoint with the implications deriving from Brexit coupled with rising nationalism across the EU countries carbon deregulation as advocated by Trump could have a catastrophic effect in terms of what could come out of the national policies and legal frameworks designed to mitigate on climate.
Is a new era being ushered in whereby ‘hard right’ nationalism shall bring about the dilution, or the outright obliteration, of environmental protection laws most of which find their roots in the collective bargaining of nation states, a case in point being the EU?
The tragedy is that there is hardly a decent left wing coalition to turn to that would perhaps serve to counterbalance the messy situation the world finds itself in at the onset of 2017.
It has often been through left wing movements such as the Labour Party in Britain that landmark initiatives to protect global climate have been made. It was under Labour that the 2008 Climate Change Act was introduced, only to have the Climate Change Department immediately closed down by Theresa May last June upon taking over.
The move, plain stupid in the eyes of many, almost parallels the attitude conveyed in the initial hours of the Trump administration. It is too early to pass judgement about the climate implications of any US-UK trade deal, should anything actually materialise, at a time when both Trump and May are still testing uncharted political waters, between them but also within the ambit of an international dimension.
As far as the implications of Brexit on Europe’s climate effort are concerned the EU Commission will definitely have to review the state of play of its carbon trading mechanism, widely considered a milestone in combating human induced climate change and how any eventual break with Britain would impinge on the carbon market.
It is obviously too early to say what the resultant scenarios would be; such matters, among many others, would be expected to arise once the UK triggers the infamous Article 50 provision as it paves its way out.
For sure, however, all member states will have to keep a watchful eye on any developments and what the UK will propose as an alternative, or otherwise, to its carbon burden and how this would translate in terms of Europe’s ambitious decarbonisation programme under the 2030 Climate and Energy Framework. Nonetheless Malta, despite the logical shift to natural gas firing.
The world holds its breath as the Trump administration parts its first shots from the Oval Office, while neo-liberals struggle to heal the wounds. One isolated comment in the plethora of opinions that have filled the media in recent times was that anthropogenic climate change was a neo-liberal ‘idea’, not even a scientific fact let alone a phenomenon that needs to be properly addressed in the best interest of future generations.
We are truly living perilous times.
sapulis@gmail.com
Alan Pulis specialises in environmental management.