Hottest year ever and Trump withdraws from Paris Accord
"Drill baby, drill” becomes reality as America abandons climate fight
“Drill baby, drill”, Donald Trump’s now infamous campaign slogan that made it into his first speech as the new President of the United States.
A slogan that symbolises his pro fossil fuel agenda and his scepticism of the impact of this on the environment.
Most worrying of all, among the series of executive orders Trump signed on day one in office was to exit the Paris climate accord — again. He did it in his first term as well in 2017.
And while this was expected, the speed with which Trump moved, on his very first day in office, took everyone by surprise. This time, the implications for the fight against climate change are even more grave.
In 2025, the world has become hotter, faster and the fight against climate change needs to be intensified, treated like a global emergency.
The Paris accord, signed in 2015, is aimed at limiting long-term global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels or, failing that, keeping temperatures at least well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
America now joins Iran, Yemen and Libya as the only countries to currently stand outside the agreement.
2024 was the hottest year on record ever. It was the first time that temperatures rose more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels in a calendar year. Things are bad, very bad and yet the world’s most powerful country has turned its back on the fight to save our planet.
In his executive order, Trump has said the Paris accord does not reflect US values and steers “American taxpayer dollars to countries that do not require, or merit, financial assistance in the interests of the American people.”
US withdrawal will take about a year to take effect and that means not only are targets to cut emissions under threat but US climate funding internationally will be frozen.
Reports say this could cost developing countries over $11 billion. That is how much America contributed to these nations in 2024 for their climate action plans.
Another body which will be hit is the UN climate secretariat, which has a good chunk of funding from the US and is facing a shortfall of money. This is the body that handles climate change negotiations across the world. America has also been at the forefront of raising money for climate action internationally and that will also stop.
Experts say it is highly unlikely that the planet will be able to meet the targets set in Paris anyway, which means a much more robust action plan is desperately needed. Only last month, the Biden administration offered a plan to cut US greenhouse gas emissions by more than 60% by 2035.
Trump however won’t have any of it. He has reversed several key energy policies of the previous administration such rolling back restrictions on oil and gas exploration in the US and revoking Joe Biden’s electric vehicle targets, which were announced in 2021. The aim was to ensure that half of all vehicles sold in the US by 2030 would be electric.
The big question is whether other countries will be driven to forge ahead with their climate change goals if the US pulls out. About 13 per cent of global CO2 emissions come from the US but most of the CO2 released into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution has also come from America.
UN-led efforts to slow down global warming now face the hard challenge of making sure the efforts, which were already not enough, don’t slow down or get squandered by Trump’s move.
Nidhi Razdan is an award-winning journalist. She has extensively reported on politics and diplomacy.
