Dr. James Fletcher, November 7, 2024
When Donald Trump won the US Presidential Election in 2016 I was in Marrakech, Morocco, attending COP 22, the climate change conference at which the Paris Agreement came into force.
I distinctly remember the day after the election. It was like a dark, heavy cloud had descended over the COP. People were shell shocked. The topic everywhere at the conference venue that day was ‘what’s next?’ A high-ranking member of the US delegation teared up while I was speaking to him that day about what they were anticipating.
One week later, I addressed a gathering of Caribbean heads and ministers who were attending the high-level segment of the COP. In my analysis of the likely impact of a Trump presidency, I indicated that he would most likely pull the US out of the Paris Agreement and stop all US government funding of climate finance instruments like the Green Climate Fund. One prime minister in the audience took the floor to publicly disagree with me and to tell the meeting that we should not take everything Donald Trump had said on the campaign trail literally. This prime minister did not believe a Trump presidency would be as bad for climate change as I had suggested. I was not surprised at his intervention.
History proved me right.
This time around I am not stunned as I was in 2016. I half expected a Donald Trump victory for many reasons, too numerous and some too complex to get into here. In some ways I understand why Donald Trump was voted back into office. In fact, his appeal to some demographics is a lot clearer now to me than it was 8 years ago.
I won’t be attending COP 29 in Baku, Azerbaijan this year, and for that I am grateful. For personal reasons I decided 9 months ago that I would stay away and that is working out to be an inspired decision. I would not want to experience that deja vu. At least this time around we all know what to expect, and both the Paris Agreement and the fight for climate justice are more advanced and mature than they were in 2016, even though the climate crisis has worsened significantly.
To my colleagues attending Cop 29, continue to fight the good fight. We thank you for your service. To the team of Caribbean and SIDS lawyers defending our submission to the International Court of Justice at The Hague in a few weeks, Godspeed. Increasingly, you will have an important role to play as we fight this climate cause on two fronts – diplomatic and legal.
The next four years will be like nothing you have seen before. Once again, we are living through a very important and pivotal moment in the history of our civilization.
