America’s climate betrayal has always been much bigger than Trump

Become an Independent member to bookmark this article Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Membership today. Join today Already a member? Log in T his weekend marks a decade since Donald Trump ’s first election victory. With his grip on Washington finally loosened, it feels like a moment to take stock of what his Maga movement has achieved – and what it has destroyed. The Western Alliance, healthcare in America and democratic institutions have all taken a battering.

But the biggest hit for much of the world has surely been the rejection of climate action, from the country that is both the richest in the world and, historically, the largest emitter. Clean energy subsidies, pollution rules and climate research have all been spurned. When the world gathers for the Cop31 UN climate conference in Antalya, the US will once again be the only major economy not to participate. The dismantling of Usaid, its overseas aid agency, last year means there is little hope of developing countries squeezed by a scorching Super El Niño really pushing the conversation forward on desperately-needed climate finance.

With the government set to face a new era of intense Congressional scrutiny, many will be keenly anticipating checks and balances to Trump-era climate policy . Democrat-controlled Congress will soon be able to launch investigations into environmental roll-backs with subpoena powers, and the party will be able to rebut attempts to strip funding from clean-energy, climate research and climate finance. But in truth, the US betrayal on climate has always been much, much bigger than Trump.

Recommended Kellogg’s new Rice Krispies are a snap, crackle and flop with me Why are Elon Musk fanboys such losers? Andy Burnham’s 10-year plan, like the nationalised trains, is running late The multiple veto points that exist across its legislative system - as well as the strength of its fossil-fuel lobby – mean that the US never developed the same political consensus around climate action as occurred in the UK and EU. Obama’s Waxman-Markey Bill – which would have set legally binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions – was killed in the Senate, while Biden’s Build Back Better Act was hugely watered down by opposition from Senator Joe Manchin of coal state West Virginia.

Even if Trump's influence begins to fade at home, the anti-climate politics he has helped legitimise will be much harder to undo abroad. Other populists like Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro and Argentina's Javier Milei rose to power attacking environmental protections and questioning climate action, while Germany's far-right AfD is making significant electoral gains with a similar playbook. The damage extends well beyond America's borders. 2026 is virtually certain to be the second-warmest year on record globally (Copyright 2026 The Associated Press.

All rights reserved) ( Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved ) The irony of all of this is that while the US has been so deeply damaging to climate efforts, the world also makes its strongest progress on climate when the US is there, adopting a mantel of progressive global leadership. That is what happened at Cop21, when the Paris Agreement was signed under Obama, and again at Cop28 in Dubai, when the US was instrumental in efforts to include language on “transitioning away from fossil fuels” in the final agreement.

The EU and China have never quite matched the diplomatic weight Washington can bring at the times when it chooses to lead. Last year, I reflected at the end of Cop30 in Brazil that the absence of the US was keenly felt in the lack of pressure placed on petrostates and other laggards. The same thing will likely happen again so long as Trump remains in the White House. But when America does return to the global climate fold – as it one day surely will – the world needs more than a return to business as usual.

It needs a better America: one that is prepared to match its diplomatic influence with meaningful domestic action, and one that will put serious American dollars behind climate finance. America’s great betrayal is not simply Trump’s retreat from climate action. It is that, for decades, the country has failed to live up to the responsibility that comes with being the world’s biggest historical emitter, while billions of people around the world suffer.

The question now is whether the US can finally become the climate leader that the world needs.