Our World in 2018

ENERGY & CLIMATE
A Year of Renewed
Climate Commitments
By Laurence Tubiana
For the growing share of the world’s
population that understands the
existential threat posed by climate
change, the beginning of 2017 brought a
sense of trepidation. In fact, collective angst
was already apparent at the 2016 United
Nations Climate Change Conference in
Marrakech, Morocco, which had just started
when Donald Trump was elected president
of the United States.
At that time, speculation was swirling
about what Trump’s election would mean
for the US and the world. But there was little
doubt that it would be bad for America’s
formal commitment to reduce greenhouse-
of climate change.
Throughout the course of 2017, questions
about what a Trump presidency would entail
began to be answered. And it turned out
that while Trump certainly holds the most
ordering military strikes, his power to refute
change, and to resist the global transition to
a green economy, is rather limited.
In Marrakech, the obstacles that Trump
would confront were already apparent.
Trump’s criticisms of the 2015 Paris climate
agreement were widely rejected, and all
countries in attendance reiterated their
commitment to the accord. They promised
to continue reducing greenhouse-gas
emissions, regardless of whether Trump
followed through on his campaign’s vow to
“cancel Paris.”
Of course, the question of whether Trump
would actually keep this campaign promise
of 2017, with a veritable soap opera – or
rather, a domestic farce – playing out in the
White House. Trump’s daughter Ivanka and
Laurence
Tubiana
Laurence Tubiana,
a former French
ambassador to
the United Nations
Framework
Convention on
Climate Change, is
CEO of the European
Climate Foundation
and a professor at
Sciences Po, Paris.
If there was one
thing that 2017
made clear, it is
the devastation that
awaits us if we do
not do more.
her husband, Jared Kushner, reportedly
supported the Paris accord. But Scott Pruitt,
the administrator of the Environmental
Protection Agency, and his fellow climatechange
deniers convinced Trump to withdraw
the US from the agreement.
on June 1, it was certainly disappointing.
But it also gave new momentum to the task
at hand. Within hours, Washington state
Governor Jay Inslee declared: “We heard the
of surrender. We wanted to send a strong
message to the world: We’re not going to
surrender.” And in response to Trump’s claim
that he was “elected to represent the citizens
of Pittsburgh, not Paris,” Pittsburgh Mayor
Bill Peduto announced that the “Steel City”
would be shifting to 100% renewable-energy
sources by 2035.
Peduto’s vocal rebuke of Trump opened a
window onto a quiet revolution that has been
taking place across the US. He, along with 382
other US mayors, is a member of the Climate
Mayors coalition, which represents 68 million
Americans. Similarly, 14 US states and the
hurricane-ravaged territory of Puerto Rico
have banded together to form the United
States Climate Alliance. All of these cities
and states are committed to implementing
the Barack Obama-era Clean Power Plan,
.
more than 1,000 US companies have vowed
to meet America’s commitments under the
Paris agreement.
This trend is not limited to the US.
President Xi Jinping of China, the world’s
largest producer of greenhouse-gas pollution,
94 2018 | OUR WORLD