US Will Stay In World Climate Fight Despite Trump, Podesta Says

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(Bloomberg) — The top U.S. representative at COP29 defended his country’s progress in curbing planet-warming carbon emissions Monday, insisting that more will endure despite President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to withdraw from the fight against global warming.

However, John Podesta, the president’s senior adviser on international climate policy, also expressed an apology at the start of the United Nations COP29 Conference in Azerbaijan. He acknowledged that the expected pullback from the world’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases comes even as “the risks we face become more catastrophic.”

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Trump’s return has already complicated talks in Baku about how much money to raise to help developing countries invest in their economies and adapt to climate change. The president-elect has vowed to withdraw the United States from the Paris accord and rescind important federal regulations to meet the country’s goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Even before his election, the US was considered an unreliable climate partner, having previously failed to ratify the landmark Kyoto Protocol more than two decades ago and deliver promised financial contributions.

“It’s clear that the next administration will try to take a U-turn and reverse much of this progress,” Podesta told reporters. “I understand very well the disappointment that the United States has sometimes caused the climate state organizations, which have gone through a pattern of strong, concrete, active US leadership followed by sudden disengagement after the US presidential election.”

Negotiators representing the world’s richest countries are working in Baku to secure more climate finance on top of the existing $100 billion annual pledge that expires next year. They are now faced with the challenge of trying to take responsibility and offset any US fiscal setback, as many developed countries face tough battles over their budgets.

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Countries are also under pressure to advance plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2035. The US will not lead by example – the likely reversal of many climate policies under Trump means the nation is unlikely to even meet its 2030 pledge.

US emissions will likely continue to decline – driven by other popular policies that Trump may leave alone, as well as action by states, local governments and businesses. Analysts also widely expect the US government to keep some of the cuts in the Tax Cuts Act that attract investment in carbon reduction projects in Republican-controlled areas.

“The work to contain climate change will continue in the United States with commitment and enthusiasm and conviction,” Podesta said. “This is not the end of our fight for a clean and safe planet,” he said, adding that “the fight is bigger than one election, one political cycle and one country.”

After Trump announced that he was withdrawing the US from the Paris Agreement in 2017, no other country followed suit. Former diplomats and veterans of the COP say that it is unlikely that countries will withdraw from the agreement this time as well.

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Jennifer Morgan, Germany’s special envoy for climate, said the health of the Paris Agreement was “really good” despite Trump’s threat to leave the agreement again. He pointed out that the Earth is predicted to be less warm this century than it would have been before the Paris agreement, even if the projections still fall short of the key goal of keeping temperatures within 1.5C of pre-industrial levels. “There are a lot of questions about the American election,” Morgan said at a press conference on Monday. “All my discussions are about how we move forward in implementing the Paris Agreement.”

At COP29, environmental activists were also cheering on Trump’s victory to bolster calls for President Joe Biden to use his dwindling weeks in office to strengthen his climate legacy. They urged him to reject pending applications to export liquefied natural gas to several countries and oppose Energy Transfer LP’s Dakota Access pipeline.

“Biden needs to use the next two months to close the climate legacy and put protections against Trump,” said Ben Goloff, who works with the Center for Biological Diversity.

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