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By Jennifer A Dlouhy and Akshat Rathi
The world was on
the brink of a climate milestone: adopting a global carbon tax for
the shipping industry. Countries had spent
years crafting the plan, hoping to throttle
planet-warming pollution from cargo vessels.
They had every reason to think the measure would
pass when the International Maritime
Organization (IMO) met in mid-October.
Enter Donald Trump. After
returning to the White House for a second term,
the president and his top officials undertook a
monthslong campaign to defeat the initiative.
The US threatened tariffs, levies and visa
restrictions to get its way.
Photo
Illustration: Daniel Zender; Photo: White
House
A battery of
American diplomats and cabinet secretaries met
with various nations to twist arms, according to
a senior US State Department official, who asked
for anonymity to speak candidly. Nations were
also warned of other potential consequences if
they backed the tax on shipping emissions,
including imposing sanctions on individuals and
blocking ships from US ports.
Under that
Trump-led pressure—or intimidation, as some
describe it—some countries started to waver.
Ultimately, a bloc including the US, Saudi
Arabia and Iran voted to adjourn the meeting for
a year, killing any chance of the charge being
adopted anytime soon.
The US “bullied
otherwise supportive or neutral countries into
turning against” the net-zero plan for shipping,
says Faïg Abbasov, a director at the European
advocacy group Transport & Environment. With
its intense lobbying at the IMO, the Trump
administration was “waging war against
multilateralism, UN diplomacy and climate
diplomacy.”
At first glance, it
might look like the US has exited the climate
fight. The president is once again pulling the
US out of the Paris Agreement, and he may not
send an official US delegation to next month’s
COP30 climate summit in Brazil. But don’t be
confused: America is still in the arena; it’s
just fighting for the other side.
A
preparatory ministerial meeting ahead of COP30
in Brazilia Photographer: Ton
Molina/Bloomberg
Since his return to
Washington, Trump has used trade talks, tariff
threats and verbal dressing-downs to encourage
countries to jettison their renewable energy
commitments (and buy more US oil and liquefied
natural gas in the process). Just 10 months into
his second term, the campaign is showing
surprising success as key figures and countries
increasingly buckle under the determined
pressure.
Trump was elected
to implement a “common sense energy agenda,”
says White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers. He
“will not jeopardize our country’s economic and
national security to pursue vague climate goals
that are killing other countries.”
The strong-arming
is happening on multiple fronts. Among the biggest is
trade, where Trump has already compelled
Japan, South Korea and the EU to pledge to spend
on American energy and energy infrastructure.
Japan, for instance, agreed to invest $550
billion on US projects, and talks are underway
to steer some of that funding to a $44 billion
Alaska gas pipeline and export site. South Korea
has pledged roughly $100 billion in US energy
purchases.
The EU, meanwhile,
has vowed to spend some $750 billion buying
American energy, including LNG, to secure lower
tariffs on its exports to the US. Analysts have
questioned whether those sales will fully
materialize, since they’d require Europe to more
than triple its annual energy imports from the
US. But the public commitment by itself was a
stunning move for a bloc that’s led the world in
pushing policies to combat climate change.
A pumpjack
in Texas Photographer: Justin
Hamel/Bloomberg
It’s a marked
acceleration from term-one Trump. During his
first four years in the White House, Trump’s
“energy dominance” agenda amounted to rally
cries of “drill, baby, drill” and slow steps to
encourage more domestic oil and gas production.
This time around, the president’s approach has
global reach—and far fewer limits.
And when it comes
to international agreements relating to energy
and climate, “the US has an interest in divide
and rule, and thus breaking the potential for
cooperation,” says Abby Innes, an associate
professor in political economy at the London
School of Economics.
Read the full
story, including the perverse twist of
Trump pushing the world into China’s arms. Subscribe
to Bloomberg News to find out how
Trump’s fossil fuel push plays out at climate
talks in Brazil.
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