Re-elected Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and Donald Trump in Davos 2020. Photo: European Union.
While Europeans expect a continuation of the Biden administration’s climate policies under a Harris presidency, they are worrying about how to save the global climate fight from a second Trump administration. EU officials and experts fear that a U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement could be much more damaging than during his first presidency, because it could be implemented without delay, and be actively designed to harm international climate diplomacy.
As U.S. election day approaches and the polls remain in a dead heat, European climate activists and politicians are preparing for the worst.
“The looming menace of a Trump two administration could cast a wide shadow in international climate politics,” worries Lola Vallejo, a climate special advisor with the think tank IDDRI.
Europe may have been able to hold global climate efforts together during Trump’s first term after he took the U.S. out of the 2015 Paris Agreement. But the fear is that without the same guardrails that existed back then, it would be much more difficult for the European Union to preserve global climate efforts this time around – especially with climate action momentum already fading in Europe.
“Back when that happened last time, the system was resilient and no other large country left the agreement,” says Vallejo, who has been co-chairing the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Sharm el-Sheikh mitigation work programme since last year. “But I think this time it could be more severe because he’s vowed to also leave the whole [UNFCCC] convention. And this time there would not be any delay, whereas last time there was a three-year delay, which allowed some breathing time for U.S. diplomats.”
One EU official, who was formerly involved with COP negotiations during the Trump years and who preferred to remain anonymous because of the diplomatic sensitivity, said the EU’s response will need to be more assertive than it was last time, when some American officials were constructive even after the U.S. gave notice to leave. “I have the feeling that now there may be an effort to actively undermine the agreement, which we didn’t see last time. The EU will have to fight against that.”
Europe can and must become the guardian of the Paris Agreement.
- Mohammed Chahim, MEP
Asked whether the European Commission is preparing for the possibility of Trump taking the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement again, climate spokesman Tim McPhie said, “the Commission will work constructively with the future U.S. administration, as it always has done.” But he added that, “As always, we will be working hard at COP29 and beyond to ensure that all the parties to the Paris Agreement do the same.”
