Trump’s dilemma: to please his friends by trashing the Paris climate deal, or not? | Bill McKibben Read more

There’s no point hiding from it – Donald Trump’s election should give us all concern for our future and the future of our children.



The chances of successfully mitigating climate change and holding global temperature increases to below a manageable 1.5 degree rise has nosedived. Trump, a man who believes that climate change is a “hoax”, wants to pull the US out of the Paris climate agreement. Even if that ends up taking time, he can decimate US federal agencies engaged in efforts to move to a greener society. He will probably cancel Obama’s Clean Power Plan, and slash federal funding for renewable energy.

It’s not for nothing that Noam Chomsky has said that the Republican party is now “the most dangerous organization in world history.” Their commitment to collaborating in climate change denial – and therefore, the destruction of our futures – is absolute, and they will now control the White House, Congress and the supreme court.

Deliberately manufacturing doubt about climate science in order to protect the profits of a few fossil fuel companies might just turn out be the biggest crime in human history. But don’t expect that to be recognized until the history books are written, nor for it to deter Trump. His administration spells disaster for the millions who will die climate change-related deaths from flooding, forced migration, starvation, drought and extreme weather.

With all this unfolding, the rest of the world needs confidence to continue with climate action. The total commitments of the world’s nations so far aren’t enough to stop the crisis. They need to be emboldened further by activists and peoples all over the world to take the drastic action needed to save the planet and save ourselves.

Trump’s election has dealt a blow to that confidence, but there is a way that the US climate movement can help restore it – fight for individual US states to defy the federal government and pledge to follow the goals of the Paris climate agreement.

The climate movement, working with unions, faith groups and everyone who doesn’t want to see the world burn, could push individual states to commit to draw up their own climate plans in line with the Paris agreement, effectively becoming honorary signatories to the accord.

Currently only UN member states are signed up to the Paris agreement’s parent treaty, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, but observer members are permitted (the Vatican is an observer), and when it comes to the most important fight in human history, no quibbles should be made around technicalities.

There is precedent for this kind of state-level action – after the US’s failure to sign the Kyoto protocol in the 2000s, a student group called Kyoto Now had similar objectives, calling for university campuses to draw up their own climate action plans in line with the Kyoto agreement. The difference between then and now is that the US climate movement is a hundred times stronger, and ready for this fight.

For example, California alone is the sixth biggest economy in the world by gross domestic product, as well as the second-biggest state in the union for carbon emissions. California’s governor, Jerry Brown, has already reacted to Trump’s victory by saying California will continue with its nation-leading climate plans, and has dispatched a team to the UN climate talks in Marrakech.

New York state is another huge carbon emitter, with a population slightly smaller than Australia and some of the best climate policies in the US. Even small states in the world’s second-biggest carbon emitter can make a huge difference.

If the Paris agreement could effectively cover large parts of America, this could send a hugely powerful signal to the rest of the world that not everyone in the US wants the country to become a “rogue state” on climate (as Mary Robinson, UN climate envoy, warned last week). It would do much to undermine the Trump administration’s denialism on the international stage and embolden other nations to continue the progress we’ve made so far.

The US climate movement has got to fight the obvious battles that are coming to try and at least partly to save federal climate action. But a purely rearguard strategy isn’t going to cut it.

A strategy of also pushing individual states to lead on climate action could set achievable goals for the movement, allow them to go on the offensive and demonstrate to the world that America isn’t a rogue state on climate – it just has a rogue president.

Their actions and success in doing this could mean the difference between winning or losing for the climate change movement globally. The world is counting on the climate movement in the US to keep climate action going. The fate of the world quite literally hangs in the balance. Take it door-to-door, state-by-state to win.