What a Trump win would mean for global climate efforts

By Sara Schonhardt | 10/23/2024 06:12 AM EDT

Todd Stern, the lead U.S. climate negotiator under Obama, talks about securing the Paris Agreement and how Trump could challenge it.

Todd Stern is surrounded by reporters after the Paris Agreement was finalized in 2015.

Todd Stern is surrounded by reporters after the Paris Agreement was finalized in 2015. Mandel Ngan/AP

An election victory by former President Donald Trump would ripple beyond America’s borders — all the way to the global climate talks on the edges of the Caspian Sea.

If Trump wins in two weeks, it could leave a hole in international leadership to address rising temperatures at a time when countries are trying to wean themselves off fossil fuels, said Todd Stern, the lead climate negotiator for the U.S during the Obama administration.

“I think that you will have a lot of frustration, a lot of disappointment. The U.S. will lose its voice at anything other than a pretty technical level,” he said Tuesday, referring to the talks known as COP29 that are scheduled to begin days after the election.

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Stern was speaking at the Brookings Institution about his new book, “Landing the Paris Climate Agreement: How It Happened, Why It Matters, and What Comes Next.” It was released just before voters might send Trump back to the White House, where he pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement in 2017.

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