A Climate Scientist on What Trump’s Victory Means for Global Warming

Some heterodox economists argue for “degrowth”
as a solution
to climate change. This is problematic for many reasons, but the degrowth for
which they argue is smart degrowth coupled with a redistribution agenda to
limit hardship. The degrowth that might occur from Trump’s policies would be
accidental and reckless. Reversing economic growth is the worst way to slow
emissions growth—but that’s likely what will happen. So the harm Trump
will do in terms of emissions may be limited by his diminishment of the U.S.
economy.

There’s also another possibility worth considering: that the
MAGA coalition might take an unexpected turn, fusing its xenophobia with a climate
agenda. Elon Musk is, of course, well
aware of the climate challenge. More surprisingly, in the October Vice
Presidential debate, J.D. Vance hinted
at a decarbonization policy not unlike that of the Biden/Harris administration:
“You’d want to reshore as much American manufacturing as possible and you’d
want to produce as much energy as possible… double down and invest in American
workers and the American people.” Of course, he bracketed this proposal with a
dismissal of climate change as “weird science” and denied that these were the Biden
administration policies.

But as climate disasters continue to accumulate, it seems
quite possible a growing MAGA faction will, like France’s Marine Le Pen, tilt
in an ecofascist
direction. Many on the left have, after
all, talked about the need to declare a “climate
emergency” and for a “wartime
mobilization” to fight climate change. Authoritarians love states
of emergency, particularly ones with no obvious end point, and such calls
could easily be turned in an illiberal direction. An ecofascist MAGA president might
pair a declared climate emergency with draconian measures directed, for example,
against migrants or other scapegoats.