The PM of Barbados, widely recognized as a leader in global climate change advocacy – especially among the lesser developed nations – has taken the opportunity of COP29 to call for a face-to-face meeting with the President elect of the USA on the subject of climate change. Why?
The reason is simple: nothing could be more fateful for the climate change agenda than the coincidence of the COP29 climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan with Donald Trump’s 2024 victory in the US presidential election.
According to the Guardian, several of the heads of the biggest economies stayed away from COP29. These include China, Germany, (the USA of course) as well as the head of the EU.
The PM has put her foot on the gas pedal with respect to the climate change movement as well as the UN 2030 Agenda. Having garnered much international attention in so doing, the PM now feels it incumbent upon her to be the first one to try to woo President Trump on the issue of climate change.
But Trump’s position on climate change is well known: Listen…
New Green Deal
The PM ought to be smart enough to know that one of the major economic problems occasioned by the outgoing Biden-Harris administration was its worship at the altar of the New Green Deal. That worship was deep and intense.
It called for an end to fracking which is a means of recovering gas and oil from shale rock. It called for the replacement of ordinary vehicles with electric vehicles. However, this never gained enough traction because of the poor performance of these vehicles and because the administration failed to come up with the requisite amount of charging stations.
That worship was so deep and intense that it led to a plethora of “green” policy prescriptions whose effect was to reduce the production of fossil-based fuels in the country leading to ever increasing gas prices. As a result, the American consumer experienced a season of immense and undeserved economic suffering over the last four years.
Trump has vowed to fix that crush on the ordinary American consumer. One immediate policy action will be restoring fracking. Pennsylvania will benefit immediately as it is one of the fossil fuel rich states. Indeed, the Trump administration has vowed not only to make America energy sufficient but energy dominant.
The fact that Trump won the battle ground state of Pennsylvania tells how deeply the average American feels about the economic strictures they have been under for the last four years under the Biden-Harris administration
Global Warming Dead
By now most of us who follow the news closely know that the theory that global warming is a cause of climate change has been largely debunked. That is why the expression “global warming” is being quietly retired even from the mainstream media in favour of the more ambiguous “climate change”.
There are those who believe that climate change is a hoax, a “shake down” rich western countries. Not surprisingly, the Trump Administration is committed to withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement; an agreement adopted by 196 Parties at COP21 in Paris, France, on 12 December 2015. For more on the Paris Agreement, click here.
The Harris presidential campaign promised to work with Ms. Mottley and others on the very matter of climate change. However, now that Ms. Harris has lost the 2024 election, the PM now finds herself having to cosy up to President elect Trump who is clearly not in favour of these devastating climate change policies.
The Barbados PM has now staked her whole international reputation- and to some extent her political future – on the climate change movement. Having dug herself in so deeply she has no option but to double down, now that an anti-climate change administration is in the White House.
The Trump administration will expire in 2028 and a general election is due in Barbados between 2026 and 2027. That is perhaps enough time for the Trump administration to show that its MAGA policies on energy make sense. The question then is this: Will Ms. Mottley continue to worship at the altar of climate change?
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