Donald Trump keeps his promises, and this is not good news for the planet. During his first week back to the White House, the American president acted, for the second time, the release of his country of the Paris Agreement on the climate. Although predictable, this decision of the second world pollutor behind China, and the leading historic polluter, will take a blow to efforts aimed at inflecting the trajectory of global warming.
François Gemenne, Professor at HEC and president of the Scientific Council of the Foundation for Nature and Man (FNH), identifies at least three risks arising from this withdrawal. Above all, the member of the IPCC believes that “following the same path as Donald Trump would be a very serious mistake”. Europe must trace its own path and take advantage of this void to “negotiate partnerships with emerging countries”.
L’Express: the United States has confirmed to the UN that they would again withdraw from the Paris Agreementan effective decision on January 27, 2026. What can be the consequences for the global fight against climate change?
François Gemenne: If we look at the aspect of international cooperation, I identify three immediate risks, which I will store in order of importance. The first: that of the “domino” effect. We had already talked about it when the United States had left the Paris Agreement for the first time, in 2017. Brazil wanted to follow suit but Jair Bolsonaro, then president, was retained by the business circles, which clearly preferred stability within the agreement to the uncertainty caused by its exit.
This time, we can see that there is a greater risk than other countries follow, even if I am a little reassured by the fact that no one else has announced it so far.
Argentina had issued the idea …
We even feared that she would come out before the United States! Javier Milei had recalled the Argentinian delegates in Buenos Aires who were at COP29. I haven’t heard it on this subject since. But this obviously remains a very important risk.
What countries might want to follow this approach?
We think of Argentina, Venezuela, Russia, perhaps tomorrow in Hungary. And potentially some African countries. Several states could be tempted because they have a populist leader, to follow up on another. It would be very serious if it happened. Not only because the countries would leave the Paris agreement, but because its cornerstone, that is to say universal participation, would then fall to the ground. At the time of COP21 negotiations, in 2015, we chose not to set imperative limits of greenhouse gas emissions to have all countries on board. However, if several of them come out, it is the double penalty: we will not have had binding limits and we will not have had universal participation either. The withdrawal of the United States is already a form of double penalty, because we had not set any binding limits to the Paris Agreement in the first place on demand … of the United States.
The second risk concerns our emission trajectory. The Paris Agreement provides that countries, every five years, are upwards their commitments. However, they must do this this year, before the COP30 which will take place in Belém (Brazil) in November. We can fear that many nations, seeing the United States withdrawing, also disengaged, saying that it will not increase their ambitions under these conditions. On the contrary, during the last revision, several countries – including China – had increased them because they had seen the re -engagement of the American administration. It was a positive dynamic. This may not be the case this time, since we are in a cooperation system where the commitments of some are aligned with those of others.
What is the third risk?
It is perhaps the most important, and the one we the least speak of: the risk of immobility associated with these permanent reversals. That is to say that all the economic operators of the transition, investors and industrialists, seeing that we change the orientation as regularly, wait and say to each other: “We are going to do anything because we do not see in What meaning will legislation evolve. ” Visibility is an absolutely crucial element of the transition. If populist leaders question, all of a sudden, everything that has been done in recent years, the climate of instability will block investments.
Take a concrete case. In France, ArcelorMittal, which is a very heavy industry, can modernize its steel manufacturing process to reduce its emissions. It costs 200 million euros. But ArcelorMittal clearly says that he cannot afford it if he does not have visibility at 15 or 20 years on the evolution of the regulations or on the carbon price.
Do you think that the observation is the same as the President of the United States is a democratic or republican?
I had not jumped for joy, unlike all my colleagues, when Joe Biden brought the United States back to the Paris Agreement. Because it created the idea of an American commitment with variable geometry, depending on the political color of the president. However, there will always be alternations, it is democracy. The difficulty, for investors, is not to know what to stick to the long term.
What strategy should the European Union stand in front of a pro-business and anti-climate Donald Trump?
I consider that that adopted in 2019 by the Green Deal was the right one. The idea was to draw a European path which was also a new economic model, a new model of value creation. At the time, I remind you, the Green Deal was carried by a very large political consensus, both defended by the conservative Ursula von der Leyen and by the socialist Frans Timmermans. And I do not know by what mystery of populism, disinformation, bureaucracy and clumsiness in communication, which was in 2019 a new economic model has today become a kind of constraint from which we would like to free.
Following the same path as Donald Trump would be a very serious mistake. From a strictly economic point of view, I am not even talking about the climate, it does a very short term calculation by focusing on what remains of fossil fuels, rather than modernizing the American industry. He even goes, in a way, against what investors have been doing in recent years. We have seen a huge boom of renewables in the United States because these, often better wise than politicians, understand that it will be the energies of the 21st century.
In Europe, we see that an essential issue for the competitiveness of companies, in addition to the tax question, is that of the price of energy. He is twice as expensive as in the United States, himself twice as expensive in China. If Donald Trump wants to drill oil and gas, it is to lower it even more. But with us, we cannot go and get oil, gas or coal, simply because we don’t have one! Those who want to get rid of Green Deal And take a break on the transition do not take this physical reality into account.
We then have two solutions. The first: buy fossil fuels abroad. We bought gas from Russia, which cost us very expensive, we buy oil in the United States – and I don’t think we have a friend’s price. The second: produce our own energy. It is the best thing to do in the interest of our industries – and I reason here as if climate change did not exist. To do this, still two solutions: either nuclear or renewables. My conviction is that you have to do both, as much as possible. The difficulty with nuclear is that it costs expensive and requires investments, especially public, and that governments have no money. There remains renewable energies. The advantage is that they can be deployed more quickly and that the private sector can come to the rescue of the public.
But you have to have a real energy policy common. We are in a system where we have both a European energy market and 27 completely different policies from each other. We inevitably come to price aberrations for manufacturers. We do not really have intelligent connected networks yet that make it possible to compensate for the intermittent of renewable energies. So there is a lot to do in this area, we must put the turbo in the interest of our businesses and their competitiveness. And in addition, it’s good for the climate.
The means of action of Europe is therefore not to unravel its Green Deal…
It is above all to accelerate it! Honestly, I think the Chinese laughs in cape when they see Donald Trump reinvesting and betting on fossil fuels. It is as if Orange, in France, re -laid fixed telephony. I fear, alas for the Americans, that they are not ridiculed by China on the energy level in the same way that they have just been ridiculed with Deepseek on artificial intelligence.
Can the European Union set up other alliances with ambitious states on climatic issues, such as Brazil or China?
Precisely at the time when the United States was in a very strong logic of economic protectionism, establishment of customs taxes, and will put themselves on a lot of countries, in any case from a commercial point of view, the Chance of Europe is to negotiate partnerships with emerging countries such as Brazil, India, China.
If she seeks to establish with them trade and free trade agreements which will promote little carboned goods and renewable energies, I think that it is possible to bring out a new economic model. I’m struck to see how riveted eyes on the United States. As if, in a way, we had to follow their way, as if we were absolutely dependent on it, when we are a larger commercial market! In my opinion, the future of the economy is rather in emerging countries.
The economist Christian Gollier, in a recent platform At Worldissues the idea – against the tide – that Europe could in turn threaten to leave the Paris Agreement, in order to save it. What do you think?
It offers two options. The first is to establish partnerships with emerging countries, the second to threaten to leave the Paris Agreement. The first option is clearly the best. I feel a little despair in Christian Gollier. But I think that we should not be drawn into a kind of lamentation and self-flagellation: we must trace our own path.
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