Trump puts US in unflattering company as lack of representative reveals disdain for climate progress
More than two decades ago, the US railed against the “axis of evil”. Now, after international climate talks spluttered to a meagre conclusion, the US finds itself grouped with unflattering company – an “axis of obstruction” that has stymied progress on the climate crisis.
Donald Trump’s administration opted to not send anyone to the UN climate summit in Brazil that culminated over the weekend – a first for the US in 30 years of these annual gatherings and another representation of the president’s disdain for the climate crisis, which he has called a “hoax” and a “con job.”
But even without the administration touting “drill, baby, drill” at the grey conference center in Belem, near the mouth of the Amazon river, 194 other countries were unable to bring down the curtain on the era of coal, oil and gas. The words “fossil fuel” were not mentioned in the agreement text after fierce opposition led by Saudi Arabia, which has previously been cajoled by the US to take a more moderate line at climate talks.
Michael Jacobs, of the thinktank ODI Global and the University of Sheffield, said that the Cop30 summit revealed “an increasingly bitter conflict at the heart of global climate politics: between those who accept the scientific fact that to deal with climate change the world must wean itself off fossil fuels over the coming decades; and those who are actively resisting this in pursuit of their short-term energy interests”.
