This article was previously published in Corporate Knights.
No one is going to accuse Donald Trump of actually caring about climate change. I mean: this is the guy who claimed climate change will create more oceanfront property and rambled repeatedly about the dangers of electrocution by battery versus shark attack.
But something interesting has happened in the 133 days (yes, that’s all it’s been) since Trump took office. In an increasing number of electoral contests that have occurred around the world since January 20 there has been a palpable anti-Trump backlash. This will have significant—and positive—consequences with respect to climate change progress.
We know what happened in Canada, of course. In the face of unhinged annexationist rhetoric emanating from the White House, Canadians chose a Prime Minister they hope will be able to keep the country safe from the threat of U.S. economic hostility, or worse. This anti-Trump sentiment was so strong, it enabled Mark Carney and the Liberal Party to close a twenty-point gap with the Conservatives and propelled them to one of the least likely electoral victories in recent Canadian history. The Liberal platform, as opposed to the Conservatives, was quite detailed in terms of its aspirations for continuing progress on climate change.
A few days later, something very similar happened in the Australian election. The Australian Labor Party (ALP) achieved a dramatic come-from-behind victory because of the electorate’s Trump concerns. Improved climate change policy will be one of the beneficiaries of this unlikely turn of events: the ALP platform is very strong—for instance—on continuing Australia’s clean energy transition.
A few European examples: in Germany, despite overt support from Elon Musk for the neo-Nazi Alternative for Germany party, the February election was won by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). The impact on climate change policy will be profound and positive: not only has the CDU agreed to press for German carbon neutrality by 2045 but it remains supportive of 90 per cent decarbonization in Europe by 2040.
In the Romanian election less than a month ago, the Trump-backed candidate unexpectedly lost and the new President Nicuşor Dan has pledged continued support for decarbonization. And a similar result was delivered a few days later in tiny Albania.
I don’t want to pretend that everything is coming up roses. In fact, in just the last few days, the Trump-backed candidate in Poland narrowly beat the more Europe-positive candidate in what spells a setback for Poland’s climate change leadership.
But the string of electoral losses that Trump-backed forces have sustained on three continents over the last short four months should serve as a reminder that many people around the world have concluded that Trump has bad ideas. Bad ideas on Ukraine. Bad ideas on tariffs. And bad ideas on decarbonization.
As Canadians, because we are inundated with U.S. news on a minute-by-minute basis, it’s easy to lose track of the fact that greenhouse gas emissions reduction is still accelerating in the rest of the world.
You can take your pick of good news: sales of electric vehicles continue to climb and will make up one out of every four cars sold worldwide this year, according to the International Energy Agency. By 2030, that proportion is set to reach 40 per cent, which will help shave off more than five million barrels of oil per day from global demand.
In China, wind and solar power have taken market share from coal in a big way. Over the past decade, coal electricity has fallen from nearly 75 per cent of the market in 2015 to 54 per cent this April. Wind and solar have skyrocketed by more than 20 points over that same period. China’s president insists the country will not slow down—it’s massively expanding its carbon market to include steel, cement, and aluminum.
Add all of this up and it starts to paint a positive picture of opportunity and hope amidst the chaos of climate retrenchment that continues south of the border.
