Climate diplomacy just about survived Trump’s first term – can it withstand a second?

As the 2016 US election results came in, I wept. The optimism felt by me and many other climate campaigners was swiftly crushed, writes Chris Wright

I still remember the energy and optimism we felt on the way to the 2016 climate talks in Marrakesh. It was the first major summit after the Paris Agreement turned into reality. It felt like climate diplomacy could truly change the world for the better.

Then, on the second day of the conference, everything changed. I remember falling into a peaceful, unworried sleep, but waking up at 5am only to see the news that Donald Trump had become president of the United States. It was like a switch flipped. By 5.01am the tears began and our collective optimism was replaced by anxiety and dread; Cop22 suddenly became a two-week-long binge watch of The Walking Dead – in real life.

That experience revealed just how much a shift in US leadership could ripple across the world stage. And now, at Cop29, that same shadow is haunting the halls of the Baku stadium.

In 2016, no one really knew what a Trump presidency would bring. But many feared that the hard-won Paris Agreement – the treaty that brought all countries together under a single framework – was now at risk of falling apart.

Today we may be on the brink of yet another major shift, as some of the world’s most senior diplomats have flagged in an open letter. And while it may be a bit premature, it is a fair question to ask whether or not these existing structures of climate diplomacy will survive – or even should.

Trump is not the only change the world must face either. Argentina’s climate-denier president, Javier Millei, has already withdrawn his delegation from Cop29. In the next year, there are critical climate elections in Germany, Canada and my home country of Australia that could transform political trajectories in some of the world’s biggest historical emitters.

If leaders like Viktor Orbán or Giorgia Meloni sense there’s blood in the water, we could see a cascade of right-wing governments pulling back from the climate altogether. This would certainly lead to more climate vulnerable countries questioning whether this process, or the broader climate talks, is still worth their time, like Papua New Guinea already has.

It’s worth remembering, however, that like history, global climate diplomacy does not start and end with the West. Some of the most significant breakthroughs in climate diplomacy have come from what many may deem “unlikely” sources. Whether it was South Africa’s leadership in 2011 where they set the foundation for Paris Agreement, or Japan’s leadership back in 1997 when the Kyoto protocol was signed – which for the first time compelled rich countries to reduce emissions.

The world’s “best COPs” have rarely been in the West, and the “powers that be” have been the bridge builders, not those on superyachts.

In the years ahead, emerging economies have the most to gain from the global energy transformation, and perhaps the most power. Groups of BASIC countries – Brazil, South Africa, India, and China – and by extension countries like Indonesia, Turkiye, Mexico, Colombia and Nigeria, won’t abandon their fossil fuel industries overnight. But they will drive regional energy transformations and could drive not only domestic, but global emissions reductions through enhanced trade and collaboration far more than the West ever could. The keys to the castles of tripling renewable energy, doubling energy efficiency and transitioning away from fossil fuels are well and truly in their hands now.

While reasonably frustrated by the West’s abandonment of public climate finance ambition, these global powerhouses have a chance to build on the Paris Agreement’s foundations and reshape it under a new leadership structure. If this Cop doesn’t turn a corner in the next week, it doesn’t mean it’s game over for climate diplomacy, or this process.

Next year’s climate summit in Brazil could be the testing ground for that, and while Latin American leaders like Susanah Muhammad and Marina Silva will have to manage challenging political shifts, they won’t be afraid of the Mandarin Man’s tweets, or Millei’s sideburn sledges.

And it’s not the first time a new generation of leaders have stepped up to powerful right wing scepticism. In 2001 the climate world proved its ability to push back against George W Bush’s attempt to sink the Kyoto Protocol, reinforcing Japan’s ability to steady the ship. Later, when Australia and then Canada told the world it wouldn’t play by Kyoto’s rules, the process bent, and for a few years many questioned it. But the magnetic power of hope and diplomatic will found a new way forward.

This journey will not be linear, though. While renewable energy is breaking investment and generation records, this year’s big climate task is financial, and it’s not an easy ask even in the best of times.

When the cost of living crisis becomes a global concern of the working class, it’s a hard sell for democratic leaders to divert domestic budgets, even as the cost of climate disasters exponentially climbs. Still, climate justice is the burden of this process and climate finance is the price of sins past and present.

Without it, and at scale, the cost of living crisis takes on horrific new proportions for billions of innocent people. So common ground will be critical over the next few days, and years. And I honestly don’t know where that landing zone might be.

But I have seeen the most powerful moments of this process. I heard the collective gasp at 3am when Venezuela’s negotiator Claudia Salerno took off her heels and stood barefoot on the table demanding that the weak shall not suffer what they must in Durban.

I’ve watched Yeb Sano from the Philippines transform a room of the world’s most powerful pessimism into tears of compassion at Cop19 in Qatar. And I’ve seen Tony de Brum from the Marshall Islands leading a one hundred country strong group into the negotiations as they marched into a late night session forging the High Ambition Coalition in Paris.

So, will climate diplomacy survive the wrath of the right-wing gaggle? I believe so. But it must evolve. If we continue to cling to outdated structures and rigid divides of a diversified world we may remain stuck in the headlights of an oncoming cybertruck.

It won’t be easy. And the world’s biggest historical emitters may even turn further away from the responsibility they owe, but within this struggle lies the potential for true  transformation. We may be stuck right now – but we may also be on the brink of a new climate era – one that doesn’t lean on old colonial powers, but builds a new decolonised framework for climate leadership. Without it, well… there may be no alternative.

Chris Wright is the founder of Climate Tracker and has been following UN climate negotiations for the last 15 years