New Climate Journal

By Ned Remington

Donald Trump won a convincing and devastating victory last night. There is nothing we can say to delegitimise his achievement- he not only won the Electoral College, but also became the first Republican to win the popular vote since 2004, and only the second since 1988. He also seems to have won outright with around 51% at the time of writing, so proponents of more proportional electoral methods can’t blame the system. Equally, Democrats can’t accuse third party voters, who voted for Jill Stein or Cornell West, of costing Harris the election- Trump won more votes than all other candidates combined in most important swing states. His upcoming premiership is more democratically legitimate than that of progressives from Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron, Justin Trudeau and Olaf Scholz. There are no excuses- the far-right won. 

There are many reasons to be terrified by this result. With the Republicans projected to control the Senate and likely keep control of the House of Representatives, Trump will have total freedom to implement as many ideas from his destructive Project2025 agenda as he likes. It’s terrible news for women’s rights, the rights of ethnic minority groups in the US, LGBT+ people, Ukrainians, Palestinians, migrants, Muslims, you name it. There’s nothing I can truthfully say that will make any of this sound less scary.

What we should do, however, is put the result in context. In July, the UK elected a Parliament completely dominated by progressive left-wing and centrist political parties. The AfD in Germany has been declining in opinion polls in recent years. In Poland, the moderate party of Donald Tusk (former EU Council President) is now in government with Tusk as Prime Minister, and they’re likely to win the next Presidential Election. The Socialist Party in Spain has shown great resilience by staying in power whilst the far-right Vox has been on the decline. In Brazil, the progressive Lula has been in power for a few years now. Recent elections in Slovenia and Austria showed worrying levels of support for the far-right, but there is no way these parties will be able to enter government. In Turkey, despite a narrow victory in the recent Presidential Election, the support for Erdogan’s authoritarian government has been waining for years, with opposition parties winning a string of local election results. Meanwhile just south of the US, Mexico has elected their first ever female President- she is Socialist, a climate scientist and a Jewish pro-Palestinian. 

You get the picture. It might feel like I’m clutching at straws, or wildly naive, and indeed it would be wrong use the above circumstances to claim that we’re going in the right direction as a planet. But these isolated examples do illustrate that the world is far bigger than the United States of America, and far more complex. There is never just one political trend or direction of travel at any one time across the globe. It’s true that we are seeing a rise in authoritarianism and a breakdown in international law and order. But we’re also seeing a fast rejection of modern fascism once it is in, or near, power, and a desire for practical, socially moderate but politically radical solutions all over the world. Obviously this will be of little comfort if you are an American worried about the next 4 years- but there is definitely light at the end of the tunnel. Trump and Vance won’t be able to kill American democracy in one term, and so when another election happens they will face brutal defeat once the American people realise their geared-up neo-fascist populism does nothing to help the cost of living. And meanwhile, you have allies across the globe who are hoping for you to join us again in a radically changing, progressive world. 

No-one needs a defiant kind of optimism more than environmentalists. Trump pledged in his victory speech to extract as much oil as possible, calling it ‘liquid gold.’ He jokingly told Robert  F Kennedy not to touch their climate policies- referring to the disgracefully immoral and self-serving endorsement Trump by the former independent candidate and environment lawyer, who rose to prominence through his court cases against American oil companies over environmental destruction. Trump will almost certainly pull the US out the Paris Agreement again, and reverse Biden’s most radical climate policies. In short, one of the world’s largest emitters will take massive steps backwards at a formative moment the planet. This will obviously have an impact, and it makes the goal of keeping global warming below 2*C above pre-industrial levels even less achievable. It seems mad that the general public of a well-educated nation would for such scientific insanity, but it makes sense if you examine how American’s get their news- I’ve written elsewhere about how our toxic Western media outlook on climate change creates a downward spiral in public awareness of the climate emergency.  

But like with social and democratic issues, we need to be clear that the US is not following a global trend. The world’s current largest emitter, China, generated more solar energy in 2023 alone than the USA has in its entire 250 year history. The UK, France, Germany and Spain are ramping up renewable energy production. Brazil is taking radical steps to halt deforestation in the Amazon. It’s now seeming likely that the UK, EU and event China could reach their goals of net zero  by 2050 or 2060. We still have a long way to go to engage countries such as Russia, Iran and India in taking the climate emergency seriously, and we now need to add the USA to that list- but things will continue to move in the right direction as a planet, albeit at a pace that is frustratingly slow. 

 We need to continue to fight hard every day to build a consensus around radical action, and persuade ordinary people in countries across the world, including the USA, that their Governments need to be doing more to halt global warming. Yesterday’s vote has made our job harder- but it’s still far from impossible. With global cooperation and determination, we can still get this right. 

Ned Remington is a 19 year old activist, and the founder and editor of the New Climate Journal.