As U.S. sheds role as climate change leader, who will fill the void?

BONN (GERMANY) — When President Donald Trump announced in June that the United States would withdraw from the Paris agreement, the US officially ceded its global leadership on climate change.

The retreat had actually begun months earlier, when climate change disappeared from most government websites and vanished from the US’ agendas.

No longer would the US federal government address climate change at home or raise global warming with foreign leaders, as former President Barack Obama and his Cabinet routinely did.

It was a dramatic shift, and it was meant to be.

“I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris,” Mr Trump said in repudiating the accord. “The Paris climate accord is simply the latest example of Washington entering into an agreement that disadvantages the US to the exclusive benefit of other countries.”

Since then, others have taken up the climate leadership role.

In Europe, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Emmanuel Macron of France have vowed that the Paris agreement will flourish without the US.

President Xi Jinping of China and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are promoting their countries as climate change champions.

United Nations (UN) secretary-general Antnio Guterres has pulled nations together to demand deeper emissions cuts. And US governors, mayors and business leaders have forged their own coalition, even taking over the US pavilion at UN climate talks in Bonn, Germany, this week.

Political analysts say it’s not clear whether any of them can replace the US and the immense diplomatic machinery it commands when engaged on an issue. Here’s a look at some of the strengths those leaders bring and the challenges they face.

1. Xi Jinping

President Xi Jinping didn’t mention Mr Trump by name at the opening of the Communist Party Congress last month, but his meaning was clear when he declared that China had taken a “driving seat in international cooperation to respond to climate change.” He also criticised countries that “retreat into self-isolation.”

Many political analysts say China has indeed moved dramatically on climate change, both to meet its own pledge under the Paris accord to cap carbon emissions by 2030, and to start the world’s largest carbon market and swiftly expand the use of electric cars. In recent months, China has hosted ministerial-level meetings on clean energy and joined Canada and the European Union to lead discussions on climate.

Mr Robert Stavins, director of the environmental economics programme at Harvard University who was in China recently to discuss climate change, said he had seen a dramatic shift in tenor among Chinese officials.

“Having been engaged very, very closely on climate change with the Obama administration as a co-leader, China appears quite content to move from co-leadership to sole leadership,” he said.

Yet skepticism abounds. While the country is ahead of its Paris target, China still burns more coal than any other country. It also remains to be seen how eager the country will be to allow greater transparency of its own carbon reduction efforts, and many fear it will revert to old demands that it and other developing countries be treated with softer rules.

2. Justin Trudeau

For many years Canada was considered a laggard on climate change, leaving the Kyoto Protocol and rarely making an impression at UN talks.

That all changed with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who cozied up to panda bears and declared “Canada is back” at the Paris global warming talks in 2015. Mr Trudeau said he was “deeply disappointed” in the US’ decision to withdraw from the Paris deal, declaring “Canada is unwavering in our commitment to fight climate change.”

Since then, he has made good on much of that goal — doubling his country’s contribution to the UN science body and sliding into the US’ place in some international arenas.

In September, for example, Canada hosted a meeting of the world’s largest economies to discuss climate change. US officials in the George W Bush administration had created that gathering, originally known as the Major Economies Forum, and it continued under Mr Obama. The Trump administration essentially abandoned it this year.

“If the US is going to step back, we’re going to step up,” Canada’s environment minister Catherine McKenna said.

But the country is still struggling to deliver meaningful climate change policy at home, and Mr Trudeau in recent months has approved bitumen pipelines and liquid natural gas projects.

Activists in Canada say if Mr Trudeau wants to be a true leader, he’ll have to reject new fossil fuel infrastructure — something that will be a steep and perhaps unmeetable challenge.

3. State and local US leaders

Perhaps no group has made a bigger splash on the world stage this year than the coalition of US governors, mayors and businesses who call themselves the We Are Still In coalition.

Informally led by California Governor Jerry Brown; Mr Michael Bloomberg, former mayor of New York, and Governor Jay Inslee of Washington, the group has vowed to uphold the Paris agreement and move ahead with policies to fight climate change.

When the Trump administration opted not to have a US pavilion at the Bonn climate talks to highlight US efforts on climate change, Mr Bloomberg and others agreed to pay for it.

Now the US pavilion is hosting a sort of shadow delegation of local leaders who say they are representing a different face of government. “I feel very strongly America should be represented there,” Mr Bloomberg said.

Yet without participation from more states, particularly those that are fossil-fuel heavy, the US as a whole will still fall short of the Paris pledge, several analyses have found.

4. Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron

The Obama administration gets a lot of credit for helping to forge the Paris Agreement, but in reality it was Europe that insisted on the accord in the first place. Since Mr Trump’s withdrawal announcement, European leaders have lost no chance to reassert themselves as the guardians of global climate change ambition.

Mr Macron in particular has continued to champion the agreement hammered out in his nation’s capital. He has invited US scientists who work on climate change to move to France, and pressed Mr Trump several times to remain in the deal. In December, France will host a celebration of the Paris Agreement, to which the US has not yet been invited. Ms Merkel put climate change at the center of a Group of 20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, this year.

It’s not clear how much those leaders’ efforts will shift US policy. As Mr Frank Maisano, a partner at the law firm Bracewell who represents energy clients, said recently, “Trump’s supporters don’t care that Macron is yelling at him. They like that.”

5. Antonio Gutteres

Mr Gutteres became the UN secretary-general in January, and those who work with him say he jumped in with both feet. Mr Guterres, a former prime minister of Portugal, made sure climate change was highlighted during the UN General Assembly, meeting with former Vice President Al Gore and Mr Brown of California to discuss ways the UN can promote solutions. He also opened a special session to discuss climate change and its impact on small islands after several hurricanes battered the Caribbean.

Mr Robert Orr, dean of the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy and a special adviser to Mr Guterres, said the UN leader was “putting his own stamp” on climate change by hosting a major summit at UN headquarters in New York in 2018. THE NEW YORK TIMES