Asia’s poorer nations will pay the highest price for Trump’s climate U-turn
Dan Steinbock says climate risks are intensifying for emerging economies in Asia, as they become collateral damage in Donald Trump’s determination to withdraw from the Paris accord
The threat of natural disasters has substantial economic implications. In Texas alone, state and local debt exceeds US$370 billion (25 per cent of state GDP). As Puerto Rico has prepared for the “catastrophic system”, its fiscal crisis is about to play out in court, with some US$125 billion in debt and pension obligations (nearly 130 per cent of GDP, about the same as in Italy).
In all these cases, extreme weather proved far more destructive than initially anticipated, navigated across several country boundaries, and left behind huge economic devastation that typically deepened income polarisation.
In each case, too, scientists see less the effect of a natural disaster and more the forces of human-induced climate change.
Ironically, as extreme weather phenomena are intensifying, international efforts to contain collateral damage may be failing.
During his campaign, Trump called the pact a “bad deal” for the US and framed withdrawal as a key piece of his “America First” platform.
The White House initiated the exit path from the climate agreement in March, when Trump signed an executive order to begin the formal process of repealing predecessor Barack Obama’s unilateral climate agenda, including ending carbon rules for power plants, seen as the key to achieve the Paris goal.
Trump believes in the climate change ‘hoax’
While Trump has expressed scepticism about the scientific basis of climate change, he has portrayed the concern over extreme weather as an obstacle to US competitiveness.
These misguided views seem to go back to November 2012, when he famously tweeted that the concept of global warming was created by the Chinese to make US manufacturing non-competitive.
China, in soaring to become the world’s second-largest economy, has overtaken the US and EU as the world’s largest emitter, with carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels tripling over the past 30 years. Nevertheless, China is estimated to account for “only” 10-12 per cent of total greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. That figure has remained fairly steady over the industrial period.
Since climate change is not just cumulative but accumulative, current greenhouse gases and aerosols have been collected in the atmosphere over the entire industrial era.
If a US exit from the climate accord does materialise, global climate risks will intensify dramatically. As far as Trump is concerned, that’s not America’s problem. In a tragic sense, he is right.
Timing matters. Under the agreement, the earliest effective date of the US withdrawal is November 2020 – the last month of the Trump presidency, in the absence of impeachment.
Dr Dan Steinbock is the founder of the Difference Group and has served as research director at the India, China and America Institute (US) and visiting fellow at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies and the EU Centre (Singapore). See http://www.differencegroup.net/