"Go home to mommy" was how Donald Trump mocked a protester, who called him a "climate criminal" during the former president's victory speech in Iowa. The activist was escorted out to raucous cheers from the MAGA crowd.
America's climate apathy has reached a new level, moving beyond simply not caring and into open hostility.
Only days later in New Hampshire, Trump used his victory speech to slam his last remaining opponent, an already well-beaten Nikki Haley—his own former UN ambassador—rather than offer any kind of vision different from an increasingly bleak future—one which he has played a very real hand in painting.
For instance, during his disastrous tenure as president, the United States withdrew from the Paris Agreement, appointed climate skeptics to dismantle existing environmental regulations, repealed the Clean Power Plan, promoted coal production and offshore drilling, and rolled back restrictions on methane emissions.
Trump, who calls climate change a "hoax," would be a disaster for U.S. climate policy if he wins in November. He would further slash regulation and accelerate U.S. fossil fuel consumption to never-before-seen levels, dragging us all to oblivion.
And that's where his trajectory is pointing.
After securing a crushing victory in Iowa, Trump declared that he would terminate Biden's "Green New Scam" and "drill, baby, drill." By drawing on this Republican soundbite from 2008 and ignoring all warnings by climate scientists, Trump is hellbent on demonstrating his credentials as the candidate that will destroy the planet in the pursuit of a good deal.
Even during Christmas, Trump wished electric car users "rot in hell". This brazen rhetoric is in keeping with Trump's platform as the anti-woke warrior, rendering culture wars more than just chatter on social media, but as an impetus for a dangerously divisive campaign that may propel him once more to the White House.
President Biden himself is hardly the perfect candidate.
Under the Biden Administration, America massively expanded fossil fuel production to unprecedented levels. This has coincided with an advertising campaign amounting to tens of millions of dollars by U.S. oil firms to shamelessly promote the expanded use of fossil fuels as "vital" to global energy security.
The U.S. was also little more than a ghost at the United Nation's annual climate summit, COP28, last year in Dubai. Biden, for all of his climate talk, did not attend, and America—through other representatives—contributed a meager $17.5m towards the much-needed Loss and Damage Fund for rapid disaster relief in the Global South.
This paled in comparison to contributions made by smaller nations and even the hosts, the oil-rich United Arab Emirates ($100 million), who is now surprisingly leading the United States in climate action, and leadership. For example, COP President Dr. Sultan Al-Jaber managed to secure a historic agreement—signed by nearly 200 countries—to transition away from fossil fuels and triple renewable capacity by 2030—achievements that Biden promised but has so far failed to deliver.
Yet, under Trump, America would likely skip the conference altogether.
This apathy on the environment has not always been the American way. In 1988, it was the Republicans in the New Hampshire primary who were trying to push their environmental credentials, arguing over who would be more effective in curbing a damaging acid rain deluge. The candidates, including the future President George H.W. Bush, had to offer residents something meaningful to limit the pollutants that were causing it, and they did. In fact, this political fight led to "one of the most significant environmental science and policy success stories of our time."
The U.S. is the crucible where the climate argument is won or lost for the entire the world. We must ensure the climate agenda is in the mainstream for this election—not as a subject of ridicule, but of existential urgency.
Ultimately, the challenge to avert climate catastrophe should bring out the best in us. We should not let divisive rhetoric and the ego of one man drive wedges between us, but remember that through our collective human spirit, we can overcome anything.
Because this apocalypse will not only sweep away our homes, jobs, and livelihoods, it will destroy our American spirit and values of community, openness, and perseverance in the face of adversity.
This year Americans must demand Biden delivers policies that match his rhetoric that climate change is the "ultimate threat to humanity", or we risk letting the out-of-control 'Trump Train' drive us all off a cliff.
Time is running out and we are on the cusp of environmental collapse. The world cannot afford four more years of this apocalyptic trajectory.
Saeed Khan is a founding member of the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU), a Washington-based think tank promoting the study and analysis of the U.S. social and domestic policy, and a consultant to the US and UK governments and the European Union on their respective Muslim communities.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
