POLITICO: ‘Trump’s worldwide shadow over local weather motion’ – ‘Trump is everywhere — even where he’s not’
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/power-switch/2025/11/24/trumps-worldwide-shadow-over-climate-action-00666725
BY HEATHER RICHARDS
When it comes to climate change, President Donald Trump is everywhere — even where he’s not.
That dynamic played out at home and abroad during the past week. Trump proposed a major expansion of oil and gas leasing along the Pacific coast and eastern Gulf of Mexico, rolled out rewrites of Clean Water Act protections that could make wetlands more vulnerable to pollution and climate threats, and proposed to overhaul Endangered Species Act regulations.
On the global stage, meanwhile, Trump snubbed both a South Africa-hosted summit of the G20 nations and the U.N. climate conference that ended Saturday in Belém, Brazil. The G20 adopted a declaration supporting the climate fight despite U.S. pressure, but Trump’s absence had a bigger impact in Belém.
The modest deal that COP30 nations eked out on Saturday in Brazil failed to include any language explicitly urging faster efforts to wean the world off fossil fuels, despite European urging, Sara Schonhardt, Karl Mathiesen, Zia Weise and Zack Colman reported.
Who was to blame for the climate action standstill at COP? Was it petrol-producing nations flexing their strength; the emerging economies relying on fossil fuels to propel their rise to global status; or the European Union, bogged down by infighting? Whichever the explanation, the absence of “a pro-climate United States” helped shape the outcome, former U.S. climate negotiator Sue Biniaz said Friday night.
Some countries that wanted to adopt a stronger pro-climate stance also had to contend with fear of possible retaliation, said Susana Muhamad, Colombia’s former environmental minister. “And so the U.S. is not here, but actually it is here in other ways,” she said.
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The White House has defended its role as a climate action antagonist, saying its position has countries lining up to make energy deals with the U.S.
“The President has set a strong example for the rest of the world by reversing course on the Green Energy Scam and unleashing our natural resources, like beautiful, clean coal and natural gas, to strengthen our grid stability and lower energy costs,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers told my colleagues.