ClimateChangeFork

During my pre-retirement life, I was focused on teaching and doing research into how to improve the odds of a global shift to sustainable energy from reliance on fossil fuels. The objective in many of these activities was to lower the price of sustainable energy compared to fossil fuels and broaden its distribution. Well, this is happening now, mainly because of the investments that China is making in sustainable energy and its export of technologies that help other countries to harvest their own energy economically.

 Figure 1 – Cumulative CO2 contributions from 1751-2017 (Source: Our World in Data)

As Figure 1 shows, the United States has been the clear leader in cumulative carbon dioxide contributions to the global atmosphere (1751-2017). Europe comes second, and China comes third, with roughly half of the US emissions. US GDP/capita in 2024 was $75,490, while China’s amounted to $23,850. Carbon dioxide has stayed in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. Climate change, triggered by carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, is not “respecting” national boundaries. Adaptations to climate change take place on a local level. However, to take part in carbon emissions mitigation, developing countries need help. Participation in the energy transition to sustainable energy—and actively adapting to anthropogenic climate change—both take money.

China is now classified by the World Bank as an upper-middle income country and a newly industrialized nation. It started out after WWII as a developing country. Figures 2 and 3 show that China is now far ahead of the US in both sustainable energy investment and its export.

Figure 2 – Investment in renewable energy, 2015-2024 (Source: Statista)

Figure 3 – US vs China energy exports, 2018-2025 (Source Medium)

Last week’s blog showed that China is overproducing sustainable energy beyond its ability to market it economically either internally or externally. Prices are also going down beyond the producers’ ability to sustain the supply. China is not alone:

Owing to the rapid spread of solar power, Spanish energy is increasingly cheap. Between 11am and 7pm, the sunniest hours in a sunny country, prices often loiter near zero on wholesale markets (see chart). Even in Germany, which by no reasonable definition is a sunny country, but which has plenty of wind, wholesale prices were negative in 301 of the 8,760 tradable hours last year.

As solar panels and wind farms take over Europe, the question facing the continent’s policymakers is what to do with all the power they produce. Ultra-low—and indeed negative—prices suggest that it is not being put to good use at present, reflecting failures in both infrastructure and regulation. There are three main ways that firms and regulators could establish a more efficient market: sending energy to areas where there is no surplus, shifting demand to hours when energy is plentiful, and storing energy as electricity, fuel or heat.

Not surprisingly, oil producers, including the US, are trying to fight back:

Brazilian diplomat and COP30 President André Aranha Corrêa do Lago has committed to lead an effort in 2026 to create two road maps: one on halting and reversing deforestation and another on transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just, orderly and equitable manner.

What those road maps will look like is still unclear. They are likely to be centered on a process for countries to discuss and debate how to reverse deforestation and phase out fossil fuels.

Over the coming months, Corrêa plans to convene high-level meetings among global leaders, including fossil fuel producers and consumers, international organizations, industries, workers, scholars and advocacy groups.

For the road map to both be accepted and be useful, the process will need to address the global market issues of supply and demand, as well as equity. For example, in some fossil fuel-producing countries, oil, gas or coal revenues are the main source of income. What can the road ahead look like for those countries that will need to diversify their economies?

Developing countries are the most sensitive to the price tension between sustainable energy and fossil fuels. I wrote about this in an earlier blog (April 29, 2014) and took part in a short movie documenting the issue in India’s Sundarbans: Quest for Energy (Short 2012).  I will return to this issue in two weeks as part of this series on changing global leadership.

I couldn’t find appropriate graphs to illuminate the conflicts, so I went to AI (through Google) to give me some help with two questions:

Q1 – Compare US and China contributions to transition developing countries to use sustainable energies:

China  dominates through massive physical infrastructure projects and supply chain control, the U.S. focuses on high-standard institutional finance and “values-driven” partnerships.

1. Financial Contributions and Mechanisms

• China’s Bilateral Lead:China’s bilateral and regional climate-related assistance has surpassed that of the U.S., providing approximately $3 billion annually in climate-friendly finance compared to the U.S.’s $1.5 billion.
• S. Multilateral Strength:The U.S. remains the larger contributor when accounting for its stake in Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs). U.S. multilateral contributions average $5.9 billion per year, while China’s are roughly $0.9 billion.
• Concessionality:A critical distinction remains the quality of finance. U.S. and other OECD contributions are typically 75% concessional (grants or low-interest loans). In contrast, only an estimated 22% of China’s climate finance is grant-equivalent, with the rest provided as non-concessional debt.

2. Strategic Infrastructure Initiatives

• China’s Green BRI:In 2025, energy projects under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) reached a record $94 billion, with renewable energy (solar, wind, waste-to-energy) accounting for $18.3 billion. However, 2025 also saw a surge in fossil fuel engagement, with oil and gas projects totaling $71.5 billion—the “dirtiest” and “greenest” year in the BRI’s history.

• S. Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGI):The U.S. leads this G7 initiative aiming to mobilize $600 billion by 2027 for high-standard infrastructure. Key projects in 2025-2026 include the Lobito Atlantic Railway Corridor in Africa, supporting clean energy access and critical mineral supply chains.

• Energy Generation Capacity:In 2025, Chinese BRI engagement added at least 2 GW of generation capacity to developing nations, including 14.6 GW of solar and 7.6 GW of wind.

3. Technology and Supply Chain Dominance

• Solar and Wind Manufacturing:China produces roughly 80% of the world’s solar components and has led the world in wind power capacity for 15 consecutive years. This allows Chinese firms to offer renewable technologies at lower costs to developing markets.

• Critical Minerals:China refines 19 out of 20 strategic minerals essential for the energy transition, maintaining a 70% average market share. The U.S. is responding by financing mining and processing facilities in countries like Brazil and Tanzania through the International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) to build alternative supply chains.

4. Summary Comparison

Q2: What are the second Trump’s administration efforts on these issues?

In 2026, the second Trump administration has significantly altered the U.S. approach to the global energy transition, shifting from climate-focused aid to a policy of “energy dominance” centered on fossil fuels and nuclear power.

1. Withdrawal from International Climate Frameworks

The administration has aggressively decoupled the U.S. from the global climate architecture:

2. Shift in Energy Assistance Priorities

Foreign energy aid has been reoriented away from renewables toward traditional and emerging domestic technologies:

3. Domestic Rollbacks Affecting Global Standing

The administration’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (2025) has neutralized many international climate commitments by:

4. Impact on the U.S.-China Rivalry

These moves have created a “leadership vacuum” that China has actively filled:

The change in global leadership in financing now extends beyond energy. One of the best indicators is the decline in US$ as an exchange currency for global trade.

THE DOLLAR is meant to be a source of safety. Lately, however, it has been a cause of fear. Since its peak in mid-January the greenback has fallen by over 9% against a basket of major currencies. Two-fifths of that fall has happened since April 1st, even as the yield on ten-year Treasuries has crept up by 0.2 percentage points. That mix of rising yields and a falling currency is a warning sign: if investors are fleeing even though returns are up, it must be because they think America has become more risky. Rumours are rife that big foreign asset managers are dumping greenbacks.

I will return to this issue in future blogs. 

July 4^th, this year, marks the 250^th birthday of the US. I will return to this issue repeatedly in the coming year. This blog and the next few, will focus on energy. This week’s focus is the connection between energy use and climate change. Just for “fun,” you can put “rnergy use and climate change” into the search box and see how the computer includes almost every blog that I have written since April 22, 2012. However, if you instead search for “energy-mass equivalence,” you will get only the blog from July 9, 2013, which directly discusses the equivalence through the most broadly used physics equation, shown below:

1. E = MC²

E is the energy, M is the mass, and C is the speed of light in a vacuum. Basically, what the equation is telling us is that in one form or another, all the “stuff” in the universe is energy. As far as we know, the only planet that can comprehend all of this is ours. When, during the 18^th – 19^th centuries, some on our planet found that a shift from an agrarian to an industrial economy (Industrial Revolution) would better their lives, it had major consequences on many activities. One of the most important transitions of the Industrial Revolution was the start of the shift toward fossil fuels as energy sources. Now, we are in the middle of the next shift in energy sources. This shift is currently experiencing changes in leadership that we will start to examine in this blog. We will continue to examine the implications of this energy shift in areas such as financing, innovations, and developing countries, in the next few blogs.

Until recently, the use of fossil fuels was directly correlated with economic progress. The relationship between the two is called energy intensity. This topic was discussed in an earlier blog (December 20, 2022) and in last week’s blog. Figure 1 from last week’s blog shows the recent emerging separation between carbon dioxide emissions and economic growth in six places: the US, four European countries, and the European Union as a bloc. There are others, but all are developed countries; China is not among the list yet. This blog is focused on the shift in the leadership in energy use from the US to China.    bbbnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

The AI summary below starts by addressing why China cannot, yet, be characterized as a country that separates carbon emissions from economic growth. It continues with data about China taking the leadership role from the US in replacing fossil fuels with sustainable energy sources:

AI Through Google:

China has demonstrated a “weak decoupling” of carbon emissions from its GDP growth: its economy has grown faster than its carbon emissions. In fact, recent data indicates that national carbon emissions have plateaued or experienced slight declines, even as GDP has increased, suggesting an emerging stronger separation. 

Decoupling Status

• • • Weak Decoupling:From 1990 to 2020, China’s real GDP increased by over 14 times, while energy-related CO2 emissions increased by approximately four times. This indicates that economic growth has consistently outpaced the growth of emissions, thus achieving a state of weak decoupling at the national level.
    • Progressive Decoupling:In the period from 2012 to 2017, the annual growth rate of emissions decelerated significantly (from 10% to 0.3%) due to gains in energy efficiency and a change in consumption patterns, even as the economy continued to grow.
    • Emerging Strong Decoupling:Recent analyses (from early 2024 through Q3 2025) suggest that China’s CO2 emissions have plateaued or slightly fallen for 18 consecutive months, a trend driven by a record surge in clean energy adoption (solar, wind, electric vehicles). This is a potential shift towards strong decoupling, where absolute emissions decrease while the economy expands. 

Figure 1 clearly shows the change in countries leading the transition towards electricity powered by clean energy production. According to the graph, China surpassed the US in clean energy generation around 2013 and has continued this trend at a much higher rate than US production.

Figure 1- Clean energy generation by country, 1991-2021

However, Figure 2 shows that China’s electricity production is still heavily dependent on coal, the dirtiest of fossil fuels.

Figure 2 – Graph of China’s electricity production by source, 1985-2024
(By Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser – Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser (2020) – “Energy”. Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: ‘https://ourworldindata.org/energy [Online Resource], CC BY 4.0, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_China#)

Meanwhile, Figures 3 and 4 show what seems to be a different story. The greenhouse gas emissions and the coal used by the US to generate electricity are in clear decline over the last 20 years. This is an apparent strengthening of the argument that was made in last week’s blog that, in spite of President Trump’s unchanging negative opinion about the energy transition in his first term, the US shift to sustainable energy has been resilient to his attitude. However, the argument goes, he learned from his “mistakes” in his first term to make the second term more effective. I mentioned in earlier blogs that the energy picture for 2025, the start of President Trump’s second term, are not yet fully available. However, Figures 3 and 4 are extended to include 2025. You’d need a magnifying glass to deduce the trend to 2025 but both figures show a small increase. To decide whether the small increase is “noise” in the data or the start of a new trend, one needs to wait!

Figure 3 – US greenhouse gas emissions, 2005-2025 (Source: NYT: U.S. Emissions Jumped in 2025 as Coal Power Rebounded)

Figure 4 – US electricity generation by source, 2005-2025 (Source: NYT: U.S. Emissions Jumped in 2025 as Coal Power Rebounded)

In the meantime, Figure 5 strengthens the argument of leadership change by estimating the deadline for complete energy transition to sustainable energy. PV Magazine summarizes this argument with the following short paragraphs:

The United States could nearly eliminate its carbon emissions and air pollution by 2148 if it maintained a pace of adding 43 GW of renewables per year, set during the first seven months of 2025, and achieved “near-electrification” of each energy-using sector.

Stanford University Prof. Mark Jacobson presented that finding and results for 149 other countries in a research paper that was recently published in RSC Sustainability.

The “most substantial and encouraging finding,” Jacobson said, is the “rate by which China is transitioning its energy economy.”

China, which added renewable generating capacity at an annual pace of 397 GW during the first 10 months of 2025, could at that pace eliminate carbon emissions and air pollution by 2051 with near-electrification of all energy sectors.

Figure 5 – Rate of energy transition, China vs. US, existing vs. projected (source: PV Magazine)

An article in Nature summarizes the backsliding argument:

Although climate action is undermined by political interests and institutional inertia, multiple safeguards are in place to prevent backsliding on progress so far, and positive feedbacks reinforce progress despite opposing forces. Key elements of climate action are irreversible and can be further strengthened by commitments, investments and positive narratives.

There is a growing political divide with forces at work, such as the deliberate efforts by the current US administration to weaken climate policies, discredit climate science and promote fossil fuels, which is cause for concern. This creates uncertainty in the direction of long-term policy to tackle climate change, which undermines the investments needed to drive decarbonization. Nevertheless, ambitious climate action is well underway and continues to evolve under the auspices of the Paris Agreement. Policies and investments have driven rapid cost reductions in renewable energy and batteries, while expanding the deployment of a range of low-carbon technologies.

China is continuing to accelerate the transition, both in research and data gathering:

China’s Ministry of Finance, alongside several other of the country’s ministries, central bank, and regulators, announced the release of its new “Corporate Sustainable Disclosure Standard No. 1 – Climate (Trial),” a new standard, aligned with the IFRS Foundation’s climate reporting standard, aimed at enabling companies to report on climate-related risks, opportunities and impacts, and to support China’s green development goals.

According to the ministry, the new trial climate reporting standard forms part of China’s efforts to addressing climate change and accelerating its comprehensive green economic and social development transformation, by providing a key mechanism to enable green and low-carbon development, as well as to solve greenwashing problems through the standardization of information disclosure, and support the guidance of capital flows to low-carbon projects.

The country also seems to be overproducing and reducing the prices of solar cells:

In a factory in a smoggy corner of China’s inland Shaanxi province, the country’s world-leading solar industry is on display. Robots scoot around carrying square slices of polysilicon, a substance usually made from quartz. The slices, each 180mm across and a hair’s breadth thick, are called wafers. They are bathed in chemicals, shot with lasers and etched with silver. All that turns them into solar cells, which convert sunlight into electricity. Several dozen of these cells are then bundled together into a solar module. The factory, which is owned by LONGi Green Energy Technology, a giant of solar manufacturing, can churn out about 16m cells a day.

China’s solar industry is dominant across every stage of the global supply chain, from the polysilicon to the finished product. Module production capacity in the country reached roughly 1,000 gigawatts (GW) last year, almost five times that of the rest of the world combined, according to Wood Mackenzie, a consultancy. What is more, it has tripled since 2021, outgrowing the rest of the world, despite efforts by America and others to boost domestic production. China is now able to produce more than twice as many solar modules as the world installs each year.

Meanwhile, under Trump, the US is continuing to test the resilience of the shift toward renewable energy:

By pulling the United States out of the main international climate treaty, seizing Venezuelan crude oil and using government power to resuscitate the domestic coal industry while choking off clean energy, the Trump administration is not just ignoring climate change, it is likely making the problem worse.

President Trump has never been shy about rejecting the scientific reality of global warming: It’s a “hoax,” he has said, a “scam,” and a “con job.”

In recent days his administration has slammed the door on every possible avenue of global cooperation on the environment. At the same time, it is sending the message that it wants the world to be awash in fossil fuels sold by America, no matter the consequences. The moves follow one of the hottest years on record, during which scientists say climate change supercharged raging wildfires in Los Angeles, deadly flooding in Texas, and a Category 5 hurricane that ravaged Caribbean islands.

I will continue to follow the dynamics.

Last week’s blog tried to summarize President Trump’s actions at the start of his second term to formalize his denial of climate change. It ended with the observation that his denial stands in contrast to the major progress that was made in 2025, globally and in the US, in the energy transition away from fossil fuels. The year marked great successes in mitigating the prospects of human-triggered (anthropogenic), destructive climate change.

The main argument the Trump administration raises is that any action away from fossil fuels and towards sustainable fuels will damage the economy, thus hurting the people who voted for him in the presidential election. Meanwhile, there has been plenty of progress in the global energy transition. These dynamics can be summarized as Trump trying to swim against the current of progress. Last week’s blog described the present US administration’s “swimming” in a manner similar to most press coverage throughout 2025. This blog will start discussing the “current” instead; this, too, is a more recent media trend:

‘A colossal own goal’: Trump’s exit from global climate treaties will have little effect outside US

How To Lose The War On Renewable Energy, Bigly

The correlation between economic growth and carbon dioxide emissions was summarized in the IPAT (Impact, Population, Access, and Technology) equation that was discussed in multiple previous blogs. Just put IPAT into the search box to find all the references for the term. A full discussion of the many aspects of the term can be read in my blog titled “IPAT: Math, Equation, Identity, and Opinion?” (September 24, 2024). The application of the term to the correlation between carbon dioxide emissions and the GDP is shown in equation 1.

1. CO₂= Population x (GDP/Capita) x (energy/GDP) x (Fossil/Energy) x (CO₂/Fossil)

This blog focuses on 6 figures that show the clear separation of carbon dioxide emissions in developed countries (Figure 1) and 5 other graphs focused on the progress recently made in the energy transition. Carbon dioxide emissions per capita by the three largest emitters are shown in Figure 2, the global temperature rise is shown in Figure 3, and Figure 4 shows the global rise in clean energy, electrification, and efficiency. Growth in applications needed for effective use of sustainable energy are shown in Figure 5, and the projected global trends in fossil fuel use, carbon dioxide emissions, and carbon capture and storage are shown in Figure 6.

The first three graphs are posted from Our World in Data, with the primary sources cited in the graphs.

  Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

The last three graphs are taken from a summary of energy transitions in 2025 (The Energy Transition in 2025: What to Watch For – RMI). Again, the primary sources are included in the graphs.

Figure 4

Figure 5

Figure 6

President Trump’s first term spanned the period of January 20, 2017 to January 20, 2021. His attitude toward climate change has been similar in his two terms, although it seemed a bit less intense in his first term compared to what he is showing now. A thorough examination of the six graphs above shows no indication that his policies have had any visible impact upon the trend towards clean energy. The prognosis is that the impacts of this term will be similar. The focus of the next blog will be on changes in leadership within the energy transition that have resulted directly from the Trump administration’s changing attitude. 

(Source: Visual Capitalist)

Shortly after President Trump’s inauguration for his second term (January 20, 2025), The New York Times (NYT) started to include a weekly section titled “The Week In Trump.” I started to collect these sections on February 14^th, and I stopped collecting them on April 4^th. I have now forgotten my exact reasoning for starting and stopping these collections. I suspect that these decisions correlated with the density of the presidential actions, most of them through Executive Orders (EO). At last count, he had made 225 EOs. To conclude 2025, NYT, like many other publications, listed many of these decisions in its yearly roundup. This blog shows just the decisions from “Looking Back at a Historic Year of Dismantling Climate Policies – The New York Times” that directly address environmental issues:

From the moment President Trump won re-election last year, it was clear that major upheavals were coming for the nation’s climate and energy policies. Few could have predicted just how sweeping the overhauls would be.

Yesterday, my colleagues published an article detailing many of the changes. Here is a partial tally of the major environmental policy moves enacted by the Trump administration.

International Diplomacy

On his first day in office, President Trump signed an executive order to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, the pact among almost all nations to fight climate change.

Weeks later, he said the United States would not be contributing a $4 billion donation to the Green Climate Fund, which helps poor countries adapt to climate change.

The administration dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development, which funded a range of climate programs around the globe.

It has pressured other companies to buy American oil and gas as part of trade negotiations.

And last month, the Trump administration did not send any representatives to COP30, the United Nations climate summit in Brazil.

Environmental Regulations

In March, Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, reframed the mission of the agency to focus on promoting economic activity rather than regulating pollution. Since then, the E.P.A. has unleashed changes that have curtailed the government’s ability to limit dangerous pollutants.

It said it would revoke the scientific determination that underpins the government’s legal authority to combat climate change.

It moved to repeal a Biden-era regulation that required coal-burning power plants to cut emissions of mercury, a neurotoxin.

It proposed freezing anti-pollution and fuel-efficiency standards for cars, setting up a clash with California, which has set more stringent standards.

The E.P.A. said it would strip federal protections from millions of acres of wetlands and streams, a move made easier by a recent Supreme Court ruling.

The agency also intends to give utilities an additional year to begin cleaning up coal ash landfills, which can leach toxic metals into nearby waterways.

And it said it would delay deadlines to meet drinking water standards for two harmful “forever chemicals” and roll back limits on four other related chemicals.

Energy

On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order declaring an “energy emergency” and calling on the government to expand support for fossil fuels while curtailing support for clean energy.

Since then, his administration has opened up more than one billion acres of federal lands and waters for oil and gas drilling.

The E.P.A. has revoked regulations that would have made it more difficult to build natural gas-fired power plants.

And the Energy Department has intervened to stop aging coal plants from being shut down.

At the same time, Trump and his allies in Congress have repealed subsidies for solar panels, wind turbines and electric vehicles.

Agencies have slowed or stopped federal approvals for new wind and solar projects.

And the administration has repealed or blocked vehicle efficiency standards that would have pushed automakers to shift away from gasoline-burning cars.

All told, companies canceled more than $32 billion in planned clean energy investments in 2025.

Climate science

It closed the independent research arm of the E.P.A. and assigned remaining employees the task of approving the use of new chemicals.

The E.P.A. said it would strip federal protections from millions of acres of wetlands and streams, a move made easier by a recent Supreme Court ruling.

It proposed freezing anti-pollution and fuel-efficiency standards for cars, setting up a clash with California, which has set more stringent standards.

The Trump administration has defunded climate research, erased scientific data and removed terms like “climate change” from federal websites.

It proposed to erase money for climate science in next year’s budget of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, while eliminating climate laboratories and research on severe storms.

It slashed funding and staffing for the National Climate Assessment, the federal government’s premier report on how global warming is affecting the country. Instead, Chris Wright, the energy secretary, selected five skeptics of climate science to write their own assessment of global warming, which was criticized by dozens of climate researchers who accused them of mischaracterizing scientific findings.

And the administration also said it would break up the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, a world-leading Earth science research institution.

That’s just a snapshot of the changes we covered this year. We’ll keep reporting on this consequential story in 2026.

The agency also intends to give utilities an additional year to begin cleaning up coal ash landfills, which can leach toxic metals into nearby waterways.

And it said it would delay deadlines to meet drinking water standards for two harmful “forever chemicals” and roll back limits on four other related chemicals.

The global impact of these attacks on environmental policies is not yet fully available. Reuters summarized them in the following way:

LITTLETON, Colorado, Dec 30 (Reuters) – For supporters of the energy transition, 2025 had plenty to complain about: the scrapping of U.S. clean energy policies, wind droughts in Europe, corporate retreats from wind power generation and a resurgence in coal-fired power output.

Yet there were also developments to celebrate, including record deployment, opens new tab of battery storage systems, historic power generation shares from solar farms in dozens of countries, and continued growth in electric vehicle sales in key car markets

This blog was based on a summary of an online article in the NYT that was dated December 22, 2025, although a lot has happened since then. I subscribe to both the online and print versions of the NYT and this article has been a rather extreme example of how today’s different news delivery methods or mediums affect the story. The print version of the same article has a different title and a completely different—longer—format (How Trump’s First Year Reshaped U.S. Energy and Climate Policy – The New York Times). The online version, however, is constantly updated. You can have access anytime to both versions.

The next few blogs will address the global and US progress that was made in 2025 in mitigating and adapting to climate change against the background 2023’s distribution of fossil fuel consumption by country, shown at the top of this blog.

Happy New Year to everybody! I promised in a previous blog that I would be reading two recently published books to try to find how we could learn from the recent past to make a better future. Last week’s blog was focused on Volker Ullrich’s book titled, Fateful Hours: The Collapse of the Weimar Republic. This blog is focused on Andrew Ross Sorkin’s book, 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History – and How it Shattered the Nation, shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2 – The cover of the book

The book is written as narrative in two parts; it starts on February 1, 1929, and ends on June 21, 1933 with the jury decision in Charles Mitchell’s trial. Mitchell was one of the main architects of the Wall Street crash, but was found not guilty of the two charges that he faced. The book includes a very extensive 88 pages of Notes and Sources, a 7-page Bibliography, 16 pages of Image Credits and Index, 2 pages of Author Notes, and an 8-page list of “the Cast of Characters and the Companies That They Represent.” The book does not contain any charts, graphs, or tables. This blog tries to correct this absence.

The economic crashes in the US and Germany directly resulted in the election of new leadership in both countries: FDR and Hitler, both shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3

On November 8, 1932, the presidential election took place in the US. Republican incumbent President Hoover was running for a second term against Democratic NY governor, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR). One might think that because of the economic catastrophe that resulted from the crash, FDR would have won easily. He did, but according to the book, his win was not because of a general agreement that he could fix the economy. Rather, it was because of his promise to end Prohibition, which was hated by most Americans. FDR was inaugurated on March 8, 1933.

Figure 4 shows the changes in the Dow Jones Industrial Average from 1920 to 1960. The exponential growth and the crash from the end of October 1929 until 1933 are clearly visible.

Figure 4 – Stock Market Crash of 1929 | Federal Reserve History

The book makes it clear that a small group of players, most of them major bank officials, fed the exponential growth of the index and uncontrolled margin policy, which directly led to the crash. To understand what that means, it’s helpful to know what margin means in this context:

margin account – a type of brokerage account which allows investors to purchase securities with borrowed funds, requiring a deposit of cash or assets as collateral to cover the risk on such transactions. (Oxford Languages)

The self-feeding that drove the exponential growth and caused the crash worked this way:

1. People made investments, borrowing 90% of the money, with the understanding that if the market went below a certain level, they must pay back the loan.
2. Many people bought credit in the same way, causing exponential growth.
3. Eventually, the market growth started to fall below the agreed level, and people had to return the loans.
4. In most cases, the only way to return the loan was to sell stocks, which caused the market to fall further.
5. The crash caused major financial losses to many people, leading also to the liquidation of many businesses.
6. The liquidation of businesses caused a major increase in unemployment. The country entered a deep recession that acquired the label of Great Depression.

As Figure 5 shows, unemployment in the US reached 25% and returned to the early 1920s rate only at the start of WWII.

Figure 5 – US unemployment rate, 1930-1945 (Source)

Meanwhile, the Dow Jones of 1929 is different from the one today, both in terms of inflation’s impact on the currency and the overall composition of the index. The AI explanation below lays out the differences.

AI (through Google) – comparing the Dow Jones of 1929 with the present:

• • • • Vastly Different Price Levels: The nominal value of the Dow today (over 48,000 points) is dramatically higher than in 1929 (peaked at ~381 points).
      • Regulatory Environment: The 1929 market was characterized by minimal regulation, high margin trading (up to 10x leverage), and slow information flow. Today’s market has significant “guardrails,” including the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), stricter margin requirements (requiring at least 50% equity), and circuit breakers to halt trading during rapid declines, making a 1929-style multi-year collapse less likely.
      • Federal Reserve Role: In 1929, the Federal Reserve did not actively intervene to stabilize the market. Today, the Fed is expected to and does intervene, using monetary tools to cushion falls and influence the economy.
      • Public Participation: In the late 1920s, less than 10% of Americans were invested in the stock market, whereas over 50% are invested today, creating a different market landscape.
      • Economic Context: The 1929 crash was a major factor, but not the sole cause, of the multi-year Great Depression, which included massive deflation and unemployment of up to 25%. Modern recessions are severe but do not compare in scale or duration to the Great Depression. 

Table 1 summarizes the impact of inflation on the index.

Table 1 – Inflation-adjusted Dow Jones (AI, through CoPilot)

Figure 6 – Margin debt as a percentage of GDP, 1919-2019 (Source: Steve Keen Substack)

The developments in the margin policy from 1925 until now are summarized in Table 2. 

AI (Through Google)

US margin regulations, primarily Federal Reserve Regulations T, U, & X{/nav}, evolved from the loose leverage of the 1920s (80-90% borrowed) to the current 50% standard post-1934 Securities Exchange Act, aiming to curb speculation after the 1929 crash, with varying rates set over time, ultimately settling near 50% for brokers (Reg T) and banks, with rules extended globally (Reg X) to prevent evasion, creating a stable framework for credit in securities.

Here’s a table summarizing key shifts and current rules:

Table 2 – US Margin Requirements: 1925 – Present (Key Milestones)

The dated parts of the book end with FDR’s inauguration and some of the consequences of the crash: The trial of Charles Mitchell, one of the pre-1929 speculation architects, ended with a not guilty verdict, adopting the notion that everybody did what Mitchell did—just on a slightly smaller scale. After FDR’s inauguration, he signed the Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial banking from investment banking and introduced insurance for depositors against bankruptcy of the bank. FDR also practically withdrew from the Gold Standard, allowing more flexibility for the national currency.

As was mentioned in last week’s blog, the impact of the crash and the following Great Depression had global consequences that contributed to WWII and what came afterward. 

Figure 1 – The cover of the book (source: Amazon)

I finished last week’s blog with the following two sentences:

 Around the same time, I ordered two recent books, Fateful Hours: the Collapse of the Weimar Republic by Volker Ullrich and 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History—and how it shattered a Nation by Andrew Ross Sorkin and Penguin Audio. Both books took place just before the start of my now, with a hidden question mark about history repeating itself. In the last two blogs of this year, I will try to explore this same premise.

I just finished reading Fateful Hours. Germany, at the time of the Weimar Republic, was a mess. This was shortly after Germany’s loss in WWI and it was the country’s first experiment with democratic governance. It didn’t go well:

Ideological extremism and shortsighted political intrigue eroded German democracy and paved the way for Hitler’s ascension, according to this intricate study. Historian Ullrich (Germany 1923) argues that the Weimar Republic, which struggled through communist insurrections, right-wing terror campaigns, hyperinflation, and the Great Depression, was done in less by these upheavals than by dysfunctional and toxic political factors. These included the Weimar constitution itself, which granted the president undemocratic powers like dissolving the legislature and ruling by emergency decree; the government’s leniency toward far-right extremists; and the refusal of Germany’s Communist Party to cooperate with the moderate left. Ullrich shrewdly analyzes a succession of incidents that nudged the Republic toward the abyss: the Communists’ refusal to support the center-left candidate, for example, guaranteed the election of reactionary Paul von Hindenburg as president in 1925; and the refusal of both right and left to compromise on unemployment insurance reform brought down a coalition government and inaugurated a string of Hindenburg-appointed minority cabinets that ruled by decree (as Hitler would). Throughout, Ullrich emphasizes the contingency of events, the importance of individual decisions, and the failings of statesmen who put short-term expedience or doctrinal purity ahead of the greater good. The result is a resonant and sobering cautionary tale of how a democracy can die. (Nov.)

Some recommended the book as a tutorial on how democracies collapse, with lessons related to our present governance—both in the US and around the world. The collapse of the Weimar Republic was just outside my “Now” (see last week’s blog) but had a strong impact on many of us. Reading the book, I was surprised about one central aspect: I was trained in physics and chemistry; I also taught and did academic and industrial research in these fields. Many of the fundamentals of these disciplines were contributed by German scientists in the first half of the 20^th century. However, I looked in the index of the book for the name of Einstein and couldn’t find it. So, the first part of this blog is a list of German Nobel Prize winners during the Weimar Republic, between 1919 and 1933 (List of German Nobel laureates – Wikipedia):

Peace Prizes:

Literature:

Chemistry:

Physics:

Physiology and Medicine:

I fully realize that some of the work for which the Nobel prizes were distributed was done before 1919. However, to my knowledge, most of the work was done within this time interval. Not many countries can claim such productivity. Is there a connection between governmental chaos and academic productivity? I don’t know, but I know that it is a question worth addressing.

One major issue that differentiates the present Trump administration from the chaos and destiny of the Weimar Republic is that the rise and fall of the latter are both in the past, while we are only in the beginning of the second Trump administration. Nevertheless, in order for people to compare, I asked AI (through Google) to list the “Similarities and differences between the Weimar Republic and the Trump administration.” This is what I got:

Historians and political analysts identify several unsettling similarities and crucial differences between the Weimar Republic’s  political climate and the Trump administration in the U.S., cautioning that while historical parallels exist, the situations are not identical. 

Similarities

• • • • Political Polarization and Nationalism:Both eras saw significant political polarization, a rise in right-wing nationalism, and racialized identity politics.
      • Charismatic Leadership and Populism:Both Adolf Hitler and Donald Trump utilized a populist, strongman persona to appeal to a population experiencing disenfranchisement and a rejection of the political status quo.
      • Media Manipulation and Propaganda:A powerful right-wing media machine in Germany (like that of magnate Alfred Hugenberg) found a parallel in contemporary U.S. conservative media, which helped support an authoritarian movement and a preferred narrative.
      • Attacks on Democratic Institutions and Norms:Both movements involved attacks on the press, the judiciary, and government bureaucracy. Both challenged the distinction between truth and falsehoods, promoting their own versions of reality.
      • Scapegoating and Fear-mongering:Both movements used migrants and political opponents as scapegoats to stoke fear and consolidate power.
      • Questioning Election Integrity:Trump’s challenges to the 2020 election and the peaceful transfer of power echo the political instability and questioning of the democratic process in the Weimar Republic’s final days. 

Differences

• • • • Constitutional and Institutional Strength:The primary difference lies in the resilience and longevity of the governing structure. The U.S. Constitution is the world’s oldest and has proven more robust, with specific guardrails (e.g., the federal system and division of powers) that have slowed attempts to consolidate autocratic power. The Weimar Constitution, in contrast, was new, fragile, and contained inherent weaknesses like Article 48, which allowed the president to rule by decree in an emergency, a provision Hitler exploited to gain total power via the Enabling Act.
      • Ideology and Intentions:Historians note that Hitler was an open, ideological opponent of democracy and aimed for an open dictatorship from the start. Neither Trump nor the Republican party has openly sought to abolish elections, instead working within the existing framework to achieve their goals.
      • Economic Context:The Weimar Republic experienced hyperinflation and a catastrophic post-WWI economic depression, making the populace more susceptible to extremist promises. The U.S. under the Trump administration did not face a comparable level of economic collapse.
      • Unified Opposition:A significant factor in the Weimar Republic’s downfall was a fractured and disunified opposition that failed to stop the Nazis. The U.S. has seen more civic resistance, and the actions of various individuals and institutions (e.g., judges, election officials, Mike Pence) helped preserve democratic processes in specific instances.
      • Level of Atrocity:While parallels in rhetoric and initial authoritarian moves exist, Trump’s presidency did not reach the level of systematic, industrialized brutality and mass murder that characterized the Third Reich and the Holocaust. 

I also asked AI to summarize for me the correlations between the stock market crash in the US in 1929 and the collapse of the Weimar Republic. Here is what I got:

The US stock market crash of 1929 directly triggered the collapse of the fragile Weimar Republic by causing American banks to recall loans crucial for German economic recovery, leading to mass unemployment, poverty, and political extremism that the Nazi Party exploited to gain power. Germany’s reliance on US capital, intended to pay reparations, meant the crash swiftly created a severe depression, eroding faith in democracy and creating fertile ground for Hitler’s promises of stability, making the crash a pivotal catalyst for the Republic’s demise.

The next blog will explore this issue further.                                                                                                                                                                               

Figure 1 – Past, now, and future

Past:

The past tells us what has already happened. Last week’s blog addressed this through both its top figure and the speech of Camille Robcis, the new chair of Columbia University’s History Department. Prof. Robcis recommended that historians should extend their interest to include the present but never explained how she defines the present. In this blog, I will explain how I define the present and some of the methods that are being used to try to predict the future.

Present:

If I ask AI (through Google) to define the present, I get a few options. I will focus here on the most general one, given below:

Philosophical Meaning

In a philosophical context, “being present” means to be mindful and fully aware of and engaged with the current moment, rather than dwelling on the past or worrying about the future. This is the basis of the common saying, “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That’s why they call it the present”.

Readers will notice that in AI’s philosophical definition, the present is defined not on its own terms but instead as it relates to the past and the future. This is also conveyed in the top figure. I will define present in terms of two associated words: simultaneity and now. The present was described in earlier blogs in terms of both these associated words (“simultaneity” in the October 15 and 22, 2013, and May 31, 2022 blogs, and “now” on March 9, 2021, in a blog entitled “My ‘Now‘”).  The October 15, 2013, blog introduced the important concept of the light-cone and its association with special relativity. This basically claims that because of the finite speed of light, we observe any object with a slight time delay that changes with the object’s distance. The speed of light in a vacuum is approximately 300 million meters/sec or 700 million miles/hr. It changes with the medium through which the light moves. So, the time delay for observing an object 1m away will be approximately 3×10^-9 sec or 3 nanoseconds. Obviously, for short distances, such a delay is negligible, but for large cosmological distances, the delay is critical.

For myself, I have defined the present based on the concept of now, in terms of interactions during my extended life span, starting with my birth and ending with the expected lifespan of my grandchildren. Following this definition, the present will be subjective for each of us. Following this definition of now, the main global threats that I have enumerated in previous blogs (See “What are we trying to teach our children,” from June 11, 2024) have taken place in my present. It should be obvious from this subjective definition of now that there is a large overlap in this kind of present with both the past and the future. This is also reflected in the opening figure of this blog.

Future:

Reality in the past (including the part of the past that overlaps our present) does not change and can be investigated. As I mentioned in earlier blogs, we are not prophets (see blogs from August 13, and 20, 2012) and we can only predict the future (including the part from our extended present) in terms of probabilities. Some of the ways that we use to estimate these probabilities, mainly in the context of climate change, are given in previous blogs:

Extrapolating from the present (February 17, 2015)

Computer simulations (February 6, 2018)

We are not prophets (August 13, 2012)

Predicting the Future and its Impacts (July 7, 2015)

A few days ago, I was watching the CBS program, “60 minutes,” to learn more about predicting the future another way: betting. Online betting is now incredibly popular. This type of prediction mainly focuses on sports results. What I learned from “60 minutes” is that it’s now being extended to the future. Figure 2 shows part of the site of this betting platform.

Figure 2 – Economy Odds & Predictions | Polymarket

Why do we need to know about possible futures? Despite a very low probability, the Chicxulub Event is a real example of something that actually took place. As a result, it is now part of Earth’s past:

65 million years ago an asteroid roughly 10 to 15 kilometers (6 to 9 miles) in diameter hit Earth in what is now [Chicxulub,] Mexico. The impact killed 70% of all species on Earth, including the dinosaurs. An impact of that size would have had devastating effects, and the geological record gives us some indication of what happened. The asteroid hit in water, creating mega-tsunamis reaching from southeastern Mexico all the way to Texas and Florida and up a shallow interior ocean that covered what is now the Great Plains. The blast would have thrown chunks of the asteroid and Earth so far that they would have briefly left the atmosphere before falling back to the ground.

Space.com explains it more:

This stony asteroid, which has an estimated diameter of around 3,600 feet (1.1 km) and passed within 1.2 million miles (1.9 million km) of Earth in 2022, has around a 0.0151% chance of coming within one Earth-moon distance over the next millennium, the team calculated. This makes it around 10 times more likely to impact as the next riskiest in the category, 20236 (1998 BZ7), which has a 0.001% probability of coming closer to us than the moon. (The moon orbits, on average, about 239,000 miles, or 384,600 km, from Earth.)

The point of this scenario is that often there is no symmetry between mitigating a coming disaster and addressing the damage that such a disaster might inflict. In the Chicxulub Event scenario, the impact killed 70% of all species on Earth but none of these species had the technology to detect its coming and prevent the collision. Despite the very low probability of the event, it was not zero. Our species now has the capacity to learn how to deflect such a collision, but it takes time and resources to develop such technologies. These trade-offs between spending now to mitigate future disasters or doing nothing now with the “hope” that (at least in our lifetimes) the disaster will not take place, should not be an option. This type of prioritization is also taking place on a smaller scale. When I was teaching climate change in school, I often heard declarations that if our world continues to trade the future well-being of our children for our present comfort, we should not have children!

Following my definition, my Now started around the beginning of WWII with the Nazi invasion of Poland. I was born into a Jewish family and as a result, my Now also started with the Holocaust. The pairing of global threats with the Holocaust seems to me a necessity that I owe my grandchildren.

I finished writing this blog on Sunday, December 14^th. We had the first sticking snow of the season, the first evening of Hanukkah, and my 24^th wedding anniversary. Around the same time, I ordered two recent books, Fateful Hours: the Collapse of the Weimar Republic by Volker Ullrich and 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History—and how it shattered a Nation by Andrew Ross Sorkin and Penguin Audio. Both books took place just before the start of my now, with a hidden question mark about history repeating itself. In the last two blogs of this year, I will try to explore this same premise.

(Source: ModelThinkers.com)

In an earlier blog (November 12, 2025), I mentioned traveling to an upcoming meeting at the Holocaust Museum that included filming an interview. Before the interview, I got early notice of the questions that I would be asked to respond to. Three of the questions read as follows:

• Elie Wiesel wrote about the Museum, “A memorial unresponsive to the future would also violate the memory of the past.” What does that mean to you?
• Why is it important to prevent genocide today?
• Why do you support the Museum’s Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide?

To those of you not familiar with Elie Weisel, among his many activities, he served as the founding chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council (1980-2016) and he led the effort to conceive and build the museum.

I answered that in my opinion, all three questions are closely related and all three can be summarized by two of the most highly used words that encompass why so many people (including myself) are still preoccupied with the Holocaust. These two words form the call of “never again.” I wrote about my attitude toward this call in an earlier blog (August 13, 2025), “A Call to Immortalize and Generalize ‘Never Again.’” Below is a key paragraph from this blog:

Expanding the scope of teaching past events—by pairing Holocaust teaching with scientifically-deduced global threats—has a good chance of having a major impact on students and teachers in future classrooms. Such pairings might be necessary to expose future generations to existing dangers for possible mitigation. However, there are serious issues with such attempts. Last week’s blog discussed some of the prerequisites for both students and teachers. Mastery of the connected topics will necessarily limit the number of students that will choose such topics.

A few days ago, the new chair of Columbia University’s History Department gave a speech about how she views teaching history. A short summary and a key paragraph of this speech are given below:

New Chair of History Says the Discipline Should Document the Past and Engage With the Present. Camille Robcis believes that historical analysis allows us to elucidate contemporary political, economic, social, and cultural questions.

Why is the study of history so important? As I see it, the main purpose of history is not simply to document the past, but to engage in a dialogue with the present. Historical analysis allows us to elucidate contemporary political, economic, social, and cultural questions by making visible the historical process through which certain things come to appear as natural, obvious, self-evident, or universal. How did we come to take for granted certain assumptions and norms, and how can we think (and act) differently once these blind spots are exposed or unmasked?

The novelty in this attitude is in the attempt to expand teaching history into understanding and having an impact on the present. Her speech does not mention how she defines the present (in my opinion it also strongly suggests that history repeats itself to be part of the present) or where she draws the line that separates present from future. In this blog and the next, I will try to draw my own lines on these issues. Before I do that, let me describe the present extent in American academic institutions, teaching students’ history vs. understanding students’ future.

Students enroll in universities to enhance their prospects for a productive future. Many choose history as their choice of focus. Per definition, all their academic choices apply toward a better future. However, not many can identify what help they need to analyze the future. I asked AI to summarize the nature of future studies and how many academic institutions in the US offer programs to try to teach students in that area. I also asked AI to compare these findings with teaching history:

Future studies:

AI (through Google):

Studying futurism, also known as future studies, involves analyzing possible, probable, and preferable futures by examining trends and their implications across various domains like technology, society, economy, and politics. Key methods include using frameworks like STEEP analysis (Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental, Political) and Causal Layered Analysis (CLA), embracing complexity and uncertainty, and preparing for future possibilities rather than making singular predictions. You can study futurism through academic programs, professional courses, or by learning to apply futurist thinking skills to your work and life.                       

AI (through Copilot):

How many universities in the US have “Future Studies” program?

There are only a handful of universities in the United States that offer dedicated programs in Future Studies (also called foresight or strategic foresight). The number is small—roughly fewer than 10 institutions with formal degrees or centers focused on this discipline.

How many universities in the US have “History Studies” program?

Over 1,400 universities in the United States offer programs in History Studies. It is one of the most widely available liberal arts majors, with hundreds of institutions providing undergraduate and graduate degrees in history.

Breakdown of History Programs in the US

• • • • Total institutions: About 1,498 universities in the US have history programs, according to EduRank’s 2025 analysis.
      • Degrees awarded: Roughly 31,000+ history degrees are granted annually across the country.
      • Popularity: History ranks as the #30 most popular major in the US.
      • Program levels:
      • Bachelor’s degrees are the most common.
      • Many universities also offer Master’s and PhD programs in history.
        • Community colleges and smaller institutions often provide associate degrees or introductory history studies tracks.

To put it differently, the top figure from ModelThinkers can be viewed as a simple model of what educational institutions should be charged with providing to all students – transformation into thinkers. The next blog will try to quantify past, present, and future, and correlate this reality with “never again.”

By the time this blog is posted, COP30 will be “history.” It officially ends on Friday, November 21^st, and this blog will be posted on Wednesday, November 26^th. I will use this blog and the one that follows to summarize the event. This blog will be focused on the change in leadership of COP30, and the next will focus on how that change in leadership affected the final resolutions of the meeting.

The attitude of President Trump and his administration toward climate change is no secret. Just put President Trump into the search box, and you will get all my references to both his first term and the present one. When a COP meeting has taken place during his presidency, a change in leadership has been accepted and delivered. However, these changes do not take place without responses. This blog focuses on these changes. Most of the global responses were anticipated, and since almost everybody, including myself and the readers of the blog, is polarized between pro- and anti-Trump, I found it best to summarize the impacts on COP30 using AI (through Google). However, one response that was not anticipated was that of the International Court of Justice, shown below and described in Inside Climate News. Members of the International Court of Justice arrive to issue an advisory opinion on states’ legal obligations to address climate change in The Hague on July 23.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) members arrive to issue first Advisory Opinion (AO) on States’ legal obligations to address climate change, in The Hague on July 23, 2025. The top UN court on July 23, 2025 described climate change as an “urgent and existential threat”, as it handed down a landmark ruling on the legal obligations of countries to prevent it. (Photo by JOHN THYS/AFP via Getty Images)

The essence of the AI response is summarized below:

Una May Gordon, Jamaica’s former principal director of climate change, noted on opening day of the United Nations climate summit last week in Brazil that her country had recently suffered “catastrophic loss and damage” in the wake of Hurricane Melissa.“We just need some accountability for those who are definitely responsible for this crisis,” Gordon said, calling for an end to impunity for major greenhouse gas emitting countries. Climate justice advocates have been demanding this for years, always with science on their side. Now they say the law is, too. For the first time in the 30-year history of the U.N. climate talks, this year’s negotiations in Belém are happening against the backdrop of a recent landmark ruling from the International Court of Justice—the world’s highest court—clarifying what countries must do to confront the climate crisis under international law, and what the legal consequences are for failing in their responsibilities. In doing so, the Court has turned what many governments treated as political choices into enforceable duties.

In its unanimous, historic advisory opinion delivered in July, the court recognized that the climate crisis is an “existential problem of planetary proportions” and that taking action to mitigate and adapt to it is not optional, but a requirement under multiple sources of international law. The court also found that U.N. member states can be held liable for breaches of their legal obligations to protect the climate system.Countries like Vanuatu, the small Pacific island state that led the initiative to seek a climate change advisory opinion from the ICJ, are hopeful that the court’s declaration can serve as a turning point in catalyzing more ambitious climate action and infusing more accountability into global climate diplomacy.

As was mentioned in previous blogs (put international law into the search box), international law is not sovereign. There is no way to enforce judgments. Only sovereign states can do so. AI (through Google) will follow with a summary of the leadership change, focusing on US, China, and the European Union:

Summary of Impacts of US Federal Withdrawals:

The primary leadership change impacting COP30 is the shift in the U.S. federal government’s approach to climate policy following the election of Donald Trump, leading to increased international discord, U.S. withdrawal from certain efforts, and a potential realignment of global climate action without U.S. dominance.

Impacts of the U.S. Leadership Change

• Hostility to Global Efforts:The U.S. government has displayed “fresh hostility” to differing global views, including using “tactics of intimidation” at the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to scuttle efforts to limit shipping emissions.
• Withdrawal and Absence:The U.S. has once again deprioritized climate action, with President Trump’s absence from COP30 and a general opposition to international agreements like the Paris Agreement.
• Increased Discord:The U.S. position has created a new era of discord in global climate politics, with other world leaders openly criticizing the U.S. stance and climate denial.
• Potential for Multilateral Realignment:Some observers suggest the absence of the U.S. may free other countries to have “real multilateral conversations” without one player dominating the outcome, potentially fostering new avenues for cooperation among the remaining parties.

US Withdrawals are Shaping Outcomes:

Beyond the specific U.S. situation, other leadership themes at COP30 are shaping outcomes:

• Shift from Pledges to Implementation:The conference is emphasizing a shift from political commitments to tangible, on-the-ground implementation of climate solutions.
• Importance of Inclusive Leadership:There is a strong focus on inclusive leadership, ensuring the benefits of the transition reach all people, and advancing the role of indigenous communities, women, and local leaders in decision-making.
• Private Sector and Local Action:Business leaders and local governments are pushing forward with their own climate action plans and innovations, sometimes shielded from federal-level policy uncertainty.
• Focus on the Global South:As the COP is held in Belém, Brazil, in the Amazon, the focus is on the immediate, existential challenges faced by developing nations and the need for adequate and predictable climate finance.

In essence, while the change in U.S. leadership presents significant headwinds and policy uncertainty for global climate governance, it is also spurring a potential shift towards more decentralized, inclusive, and implementation-focused climate action from other global actors.

However, despite US federal withdrawals from global commitments, others in state and local government continue to demonstrate their belief in the importance of confronting climate change:

The United States is maintaining a presence at COP30, despite the Trump administration declining to send an official delegation to the climate conference in Brazil. This is the first time since the inaugural Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1995 that the U.S. will not be officially represented at the annual climate summit. However, a large number of state and local representatives — as well as environmental nonprofits based in the U.S. — are in attendance. A coalition of 100 local U.S. leaders — including governors, mayors and other top city and state officials — made the trip to Belem, Brazil, as part of the U.S. Climate Alliance. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, among the notable Americans at COP30, bashed President Donald Trump for disregarding the event, which kicked off Monday. “While Donald Trump skips the world stage, California is showing up — leading, partnering, and proving what American climate leadership looks like,” Newsom said on Tuesday. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-RI, said in a press conference on Friday that the “Trump administration simply does not represent the American public on climate issues.” Whitehouse, a ranking member on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, accused the current administration of representing the fossil fuel industry, “most particularly the big fossil fuel donors who contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to Trump’s political campaign.”

Leadership shifts to China and the European Union (Through AI):                                                                     

China is emerging with a larger leadership role in climate diplomacy and clean technology, while the European Union faces challenges in maintaining its traditional leadership position, particularly due to the absence of a U.S. presence. 

China’s Assertive Role:

• • • Technological Dominance: China is leveraging its position as the world’s leading manufacturer and exporter of renewable energy technologies (solar panels, wind turbines, batteries) to boost its climate diplomacy and provide affordable green tech to other nations, especially in the Global South.
    • Filling the Void: With the U.S. having withdrawn from the Paris Agreement and largely absent from COP30, China has stepped in to a more prominent role in the negotiations, acting as a “bridge-builder” and a stable partner in the global energy transition.
    • High-Level Representation: China has sent a large delegation, led by Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang, underscoring its support for the Brazil-hosted summit and solidifying its presence.
    • Criticism of the EU: China’s climate envoy, Liu Zhenmin, has publicly criticized the EU’s climate targets as insufficient, arguing that developed nations need to accelerate their pollution cuts faster. 

The European Union’s Challenges

• • • Erosion of Influence: The EU is experiencing a perceived reduction in its overall geopolitical influence and is grappling with domestic pushback against climate policies, which some argue necessitates a new strategy of forming alliances with “middle powers” like Brazil.
    • Policy Divisions: The EU is facing internal divisions on the ambition of its own 2035 climate targets, which has delayed the finalization of its updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC).
    • Financial Hurdles: The EU faces challenges regarding climate financing, particularly in committing to and delivering on the necessary funds for developing nations to combat climate change and adapt to its impacts.
    • Maintaining Credibility: The EU is striving to remain a central player, but its ability to lead is being tested by the political and financial challenges it faces internally and externally. 

In essence, while the EU still has a crucial role to play, China’s economic and technological strategy has effectively translated into growing climate soft power, leading to a visible shift in the dynamics of leadership at COP30.

China is not enthusiastic about its new role:

China is committed to the energy transition needed to avert climate breakdown – but does not want to take the lead alone in the absence of the US, one of the country’s senior advisers has told the Guardian.

Wang Yi said China would provide more money to vulnerable countries, but the EU’s climate commissioner has warned Beijing is not doing enough to cut emissions.“I don’t think China would like to play a leadership role alone,” said Wang, the vice-chair of China’s expert panel on climate change. “The most important thing is how to maintain momentum. Now we have two possible directions: one, we go forward with clearer, more ambitious targets. The other may be going back. “So that’s why China would like to do our best to steer in this kind of direction towards low-carbon or green transition, but in cooperation with other countries. We don’t want to take the lead alone. We need comprehensive leadership.”

COP30 is one of the forums in which the world is trying to adapt to global affairs without US “guidance.” The recent G20 meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa, is another such forum. It recently adopted a declaration despite the US boycott over the alleged persecution of white South Africans and opposition to the scientific consensus on anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change.

Next week’s blog will summarize the final decisions of COP30 and the voting rules on such resolutions.