The US elections will have a big impact on the climate change fight

Every US presidential election is consequential, but American voters face an unusually weighty decision in 2024. The outcome will have implications for US foreign policy, social policy and the integrity of the political system itself. But none of its consequences will be more profound or far-reaching than on global efforts to combat climate change.

As president, Donald Trump pulled the US out of the Paris climate agreement, while America under President Joe Biden rejoined it. Trump has vowed to expand oil and gas production, and his campaign has vowed that he will again withdraw the US from the Paris accord if he wins a second term.

By contrast, US Vice-President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, supported the Green New Deal, an ambitious congressional plan for tackling climate change, while serving as a Senator in 2019. 

As California’s attorney general, she investigated the oil industry, securing a settlement from a subsidiary of British Petroleum for underground gas tank ruptures, as well as indictments against a Texas-based pipeline operator for an environmentally damaging oil leak.

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Clearly, the positions of the two candidates on the climate crisis could not be more different.

But one might ask: What’s so catastrophic about a newly re-elected Trump pulling the US out of the Paris accord a second time, if the next president could, like Biden, simply rejoin it?

In fact, Trump’s advisors seem well aware of that possibility. They are reportedly drafting executive orders that would remove the US not just from the Paris climate agreement, but also from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the foundation on which the Paris agreement is built.

Reversing that step would then require approval by the US Senate. And Senate approval cannot be taken for granted, given the ample representation in that chamber of oil- and gas-rich states.

Moreover, a Trump presidency would put other bilateral climate agreements, actual and potential, at risk. Currently, a prospective US-EU climate deal, intended to reconcile the respective economies’ different approaches to reining in greenhouse-gas emissions, is in suspended animation, owing to the approach of the US election.

The EU has combined its cap-and-trade permit system with a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), which is, in effect, a tax on the carbon content equivalent of imports from countries failing to put an adequate price on emissions. 

A carbon price being a non-starter in the US Congress, the Biden administration has instead proceeded with subsidies for low-carbon production of steel, aluminium and other products.

Trump is unlikely to persist with climate-friendly subsidies, much less with negotiations. The EU would then apply its CBAM to US exports in full. Inevitably, US retaliation would result.

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Late last year, moreover, the US and China successfully negotiated the Sunnylands Statement affirming their commitment to work together to combat climate change. 

This commitment by the world’s two largest economies to limit emissions was predicated, in each country’s case, on the willingness of the other to do likewise. 

Significantly, China agreed for the first time to add non-carbon greenhouse gases—including methane, nitrous oxide and hydrofluorocarbons used in the manufacture of air-conditioners—to its prior agreements.

Trump, of course, has famously insisted that China “cheats” its international partners. If the US reneged on its climate commitments, China would have every incentive to do likewise. And Trump’s proposed 60% tariff on all imports from China would be another nail in Sunnylands’ coffin.

Harris, on the other hand, would probably seek to reinvigorate these negotiations, at least if her support for the Green New Deal is any guide. But she could also do more. 

She could demonstrate her independence from her predecessor by removing Biden’s punishing tariffs on imports of Chinese electric vehicles (EVs), lithium-ion batteries and solar panels (which also cover solar equipment made by Chinese firms in Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam).

Various rationales are offered for these tariffs. They secure domestic supply chains. They offset unfair Chinese subsidies and dumping. They give US factories time to move down their production learning curves and cut costs in key industries that would otherwise be dominated by a strategic rival. They hold out hope of creating additional manufacturing jobs.

These are worthy goals. But they come at the cost of impeding climate-change adaptation and abatement of emissions. Shutting out economical Chinese EVs encourages US motorists to stick with internal combustion engines. 

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Taxing Chinese solar panels discourages American households from installing lightweight plug-in panels on their balconies, as Germans do.

Thus, President Harris, should she win this year’s election, would face a dilemma. She would have to decide whether to prioritize domestic manufacturing jobs and economic independence from China over the fight against climate change. There is no avoiding the trade-off. But, then, this is the sort of question that presidents are elected to decide. ©2024/project syndicate