LONDON — The last time Donald Trump entered the White House and menaced efforts to stop the climate from overheating, affronted world leaders closed ranks against him.
Such defiance and unity are practically unthinkable this time.
Trump’s peers are disunited, focused inward and have already largely abandoned the vanguard of the fight to stop the planet from burning up.
Their list of excuses, in fairness, contains many serious considerations. Wars and trade disputes have eroded international cooperation. A pile-up of global and domestic challenges has pushed climate change down — or off — the agenda when world leaders meet. The European powerhouses that eagerly claimed the climate mantle after Trump’s 2016 election are now fumbling through a house of mirrors as they confront economic decline, populism and what French President Emmanuel Macron warns could be the failure of the EU project. Many of these problems, by the way, will likely become even more daunting during a Trump presidency.
