The writer is senior director for economics at Opportunity Green, a think-tank
The Trump administration’s attempted reshaping of the global economic order via a sweeping new tariff regime is producing inadvertent opportunities for the rest of the world. “America First” policies are opening new spaces for action on climate change.
This has not been immediately obvious. Trump’s disdain for climate science is notorious. His energy secretary, Chris Wright, has pledged more fossil fuel investment. The “grand global economic reordering” promised by Treasury secretary Scott Bessent included a contemptuous turn away from multilateral action on climate change. The US, as it did under the first Trump administration, has left the Paris Agreement on global emissions and is withdrawing support for domestic renewables.