I wrote this piece for the Health Policy newsletter for my medical school, but wanted to cross-post it here. It feels odd to post, as it’s a synthesis of a lot of other people’s work paired with just a few thoughts on my end. But in any case, it was a useful exercise to research and write.
On November 8th, 2016, Donald J. Trump was elected as the next President of the United States. Across the globe in Marrakesh, Morocco, attendees of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), watched in horror.
President-elect Trump has expressed a dizzying array of perspectives on climate change. In 2012, he tweeted, “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” In his “New Deal for Black America,” Trump promised he would reduce “wasteful climate change spending” by $100 billion. To do so, he planned to eliminate federal funding for research, green technology development, and all international assistance promised toward poor nations undergoing the brunt of climate impact.
During the campaign trail, Trump threatened to repeal President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, in which the EPA assigns each state an individualized standard for reducing power plant carbon emissions. He said he would “cancel” the Paris Agreement, rescind Obama’s Climate Action Plan, and “abolish” the Environmental Protection Agency.
But in 2009, this same man signed an open letter in the New York Times that asked the Obama Administration to strengthen measures in fighting climate change, citing “catastrophic and irreversible consequences for our human planet.” And I would be remiss to not mention that after the election, Trump moderated his rhetoric. He says now he is looking at the Paris Agreement “very closely” with “an open mind.” Regarding the link between human activity and climate change, he told the New York Times he thinks there is “some connectivity.” (His appointed chief of staff Reince Priebius helpfully clarified, “look, he’ll have an open mind about it but he has his default position, which most of it is a bunch of bunk.”)
Donald J. Trump: truly a walking conundrum.
But if the adage “actions speak louder than words,” is true, then we have reason to be worried. Post-election, President-elect Trump appointed long-time climate change denier Myron Ebell to oversee the transition at the Environmental Protection Agency. Mr. Ebell is not a scientist, but for the past twenty years has devoted himself to contradicting the view expressed in 97% of all 12,000 peer-reviewed climate scientific papers between 1991 and 2011: that global warming is real, and it is caused by humans. He can be found spouting off erudite gems such as, “The whole case for global warming I believe is silly. And I believe the vast majority of scientists think it’s silly. And therefore I’m a little bit embarrassed that I waste my time on a silly issue.”
As future physicians, it is crucial that we pay attention. The 2015 Lancet Commission on Health and Climate Change, an international collaboration of experts in climate science, energy, biodiversity, economics, and policy, calls climate change “the biggest global health threat of the 21st century.” A 2014 WHO report estimates that by 2050, climate change-induced malaria, diarrhea, heat stroke, and malnutrition will add 250,000 deaths annually. This number is an underestimate, as it does not take into account effects of economic damage, water scarcity, major heat wave events, or river flooding.
The WHO estimate also does not take into account the socio-political costs of an unpredictable planet. Yale historian Timothy Snyder draws a compelling case for how resource scarcity has historically been used to vindicate human exploitation, the identification of scapegoats to purge from the population, and thus genocide. It is hardly a leap of faith to predict that a climate change-ridden world would magnify the “us or them” philosophy dominant on today’s political scene, resulting in large-scale violence and atrocities. As MIT climate scientist Kerry Emanuel points out, “in a nuclear world [armed conflict] is a very, very dangerous thing.”
Given that the world’s most powerful man will be a climate change denialist, what should we expect?
Here is some more information about the legislation Trump expressed plans to scrap. The Clean Power Plan was projected to curb 2013 power plant emissions by 20% by 2030, reducing national greenhouse gas emissions overall by 6%. Under the December 2015 Paris Agreement, the U.S. promised to cut emissions by 26 to 28% by 2025. Before the election, Lux Research analysts concluded that Trump’s proposed environmental policies, taking into account their feasibility, would result in 3.4 billion tons more U.S. carbon emissions than a Clinton Presidency.
Now, in the light of a Trump presidency’s impending actuality, it is unclear what our new President will or won’t do. It would take four long years for Trump to officially pull out of the Paris Agreement. If he were interested in rushing that process, he could effectively do the same thing by withdrawing from the 1992 U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, the parent treaty of the Paris Agreement, in just one year. In the meantime, he could simply refuse to implement it: the agreement is comprised of mostly self-proposed, voluntary measures with no means of enforcement. Unsurprisingly, if America, the world’s second biggest carbon polluter, withdrew from the international agreement, it could easily spur other nations to do the same.
However, pulling out of the agreement would be a blight to our nation’s international standing. “If you renege on deals, you don’t get the one you want next time,” James Cameron, the chairman of the Overseas Development Institute, warns. Not only might other countries retaliate by imposing carbon tariffs on American imported goods, but Trump also risks defying overwhelming popular support for staying in the Paris Agreement.
Trump has also promised to resurrect the coal industry; but here, economics has the potential to be our saving grace. The President-elect does have the power to cancel a new proposed Obama administration rule that restricts mining discharges into streams, and lift a moratorium blocking new coal leases in the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana. But many point out that that won’t matter if there are no buyers for coal, and the cheap prices of natural gas is what has been and will continue to keep the coal industry down.
In fact, if there is a reason for optimism, this seems to be the crux of it. Another of Trump’s avowed enemies, the Clean Power Plan, is currently subject to a legal challenge by 27 states and some companies. If that challenge makes it to the Supreme Court, the incipient federal administration might choose not to defend it; if the Supreme Court approves it, then the Ebell-led EPA could repeal and replace it. But regardless of whether it stays or goes, analysts predict that electricity companies and states are wont to stay the course, moving towards cheap, plentiful renewable energy and away from costly fossil fuels.
Meanwhile, 2016 will be our warmest year since recording began in 1880. Even if the Trump-led U.S. and other countries do not actively renege on any stated commitments, a November 2016 evaluation finds current, post-Paris Agreement government policies inadequate worldwide. Far from the 1.5 d C goal above pre-industrial temperatures that we profess, we are currently on track for warming of 3.6 d C. To put that into context, 2 d C has long been deemed the “point of no return” in climate change–the threshold that, should we exceed, is expected to herald flooding of coastal cities and low-lying nations, mass extinctions, and major droughts and fires.
As the Marrakesh summit came to an end, attendees reiterated their partiality toward staving off apocalypse, with or without President-elect Trump’s cooperation. Obama’s secretary of energy reassured his international colleagues that the president’s power was limited, saying, “We are heading to a low carbon economy. The train has left the station.” But nobody summed up my feelings about the next four years better than French climate envoy Laurence Tubiana.
“I hope President Trump considers the laws of physics,” the Paris Agreement negotiator said. “Climate change will not stop, even if he stops implementing the rules.”