Under Donald Trump, America has not only jettisoned any effort to deal with the climate crisis, but has also attempted to stymie moves by other nations to shift to cleaner forms of energy, such as solar and wind.<\/p>\n
The climate crisis is \u201cthe greatest con job perpetrated by the world\u201d, Trump told the UN in September, urging other governments to stick to oil and gas (preferably drilled in the US, of course) and ditch the \u201cscam\u201d of renewable energy.<\/p>\n
So, the US\u2019s absence from the Cop30 climate summit under way in Bel\u00e9m, Brazil was initially met by other delegates here with a kind of relief akin to when the school bully takes a day off sick.<\/p>\n
More on what an absent America means for this year\u2019s climate conference, after today\u2019s climate headlines.<\/p>\n
Essential readsIn focusAn Indigenous person walks in the Cop30 village in Bel\u00e9m. Photograph: Adriano Machado\/Reuters<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s energy secretary, Chris Wright, said last week that Cop30 is \u201cessentially a hoax\u201d and while there is no US delegation for the first time ever at the annual talks, next year he might show up \u201cjust to try to deliver some common sense\u201d.<\/p>\n
Not having a recalcitrant US in Bel\u00e9m has allowed the rest of the world to crack on with trying to make up some of the yawning gap between what the science demands to avoid disastrous climate impacts and our lagging response.<\/p>\n
The US\u2019s absence is \u201cactually a good thing\u201d, according to Christiana Figueres, former executive secretary of the United Nations framework convention on climate change. \u201cCiao, bambino,\u201d was her response to the US\u2019s departure from the Paris agreement.<\/p>\n
But there are also waves of nervousness rippling through the diplomats here in Brazil. While the world\u2019s leading economic and military superpower isn\u2019t officially present, it is watching. And it could intervene in a similar way to a recent international meeting aimed at curbing shipping emissions, in which US representatives were accused of bullying tactics to derail the process.<\/p>\n
Some negotiators have admitted privately to treading carefully, wary of upsetting Trump. Many do not want to say anything publicly about the US, for fear of retribution.<\/p>\n
skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n The planet’s most important stories. Get all the week’s environment news – the good, the bad and the essential<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n We are still in the early stages of this two-week summit. Should countries start to piece together some momentum towards a strong climate deal here \u2013 a deal that requires consensus \u2013 Trump could swoop.<\/p>\n \u201cIf more concrete decisions come to implement a list of issues, that\u2019s when I expect to start to see pushback diplomatically from the Trump administration,\u201d said Bill Hare, a climate scientist and Cop veteran.<\/p>\n \u201cThe negotiators are talking about it and worrying about it. The small countries are all saying, \u2018We could be vulnerable. We could get picked off at a capital level.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Read more:<\/p>\n