The fall is rather heavy with global summits. We have just seen President Trump travel to Asia and attend various ‘bilats’, most critically with Xi Jinping of China, and as noted last week in my Post, Summits à la Trump 2.0, glancing at APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation) without in fact attending. And speaking of not attending, Trump has made clear Trump will not attend either the G20 Leaders Summit in South Africa later this month, nor will he join COP30 at Belém Brazil.
On the margins of APEC, as pointed out by Sun Ryung Park at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, besides China, Trump held other bilateral meetings with national leaders and agreed to:
“Trump and South Korea’s president, Lee Jae Myung, agreed to reduce reciprocal tariffs from 25 to 15 per cent, with Seoul committing to invest up to US$350 billion in the U.S. and to seek U.S. approval for nuclear sub fuel access. Takaichi signed a deal on rare earth and energy infrastructure with Trump, while Taiwan made progress on a potential bilateral trade pact to lower its 20 per cent U.S. tariff burden.”
Now turning to the South Africa G20 about to occur. Trump continued his attack on South Africa. Capturing Trump’s ill-informed view of South Africa from the Tribune from India:
“US President Donald Trump has said he will not attend the G20 Summit scheduled to be held in South Africa later this month.”
““I am not going. We have a G20 meeting in South Africa. South Africa shouldn’t even be in the Gs anymore because what’s happened there is bad. I told them I’m not going. I’m not going to represent our country there. It shouldn’t be there,” Trump said at the America Business Forum in Miami on Wednesday.”
“As he slammed “communist” New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, Trump said that Miami has for generations been a haven for those fleeing communist tyranny in South Africa.”
And it seems, at least for the moment, there is, dare I say it, some relief from his nonappearance. The meeting may with US absence advance some useful multilateral actions. As reported by Anna Gawel at Devex:
“The Group of 20 major economies is trying to chip away at the mountain of debt that’s weighing down global south economies. Under the South African presidency, the G20 made some headway recently by reaffirming support to strengthen the bloc’s existing debt restructuring program, known as the Common Framework.”
“It is the first time a declaration on debt has been issued since the COVID-19 pandemic, and the only topic on which finance ministers from all G20 countries — including the United States — reached enough of a consensus for a communiqué, my colleagues Elissa Miolene and Adva Saldinger write.”
We will return to the G20 when leaders gather in Johannesburg for the Summit on November 22nd-23rd. Meanwhile, Sun Ryung Park, concluded with the following on the various Trump meetings:
“In brief, the various meetings in Gyeongju bought time, but did not necessarily offer long-term solutions. The fundamental U.S.–China economic rivalry will remain as the region’s defining fault line.”
Maybe so, but meanwhile there is diplomatic progress without Trump is described by Anna Gawel in Devex:
“The Group of 20 major economies is trying to chip away at the mountain of debt that’s weighing down global south economies. Under the South African presidency, the G20 made some headway recently by reaffirming support to strengthen the bloc’s existing debt restructuring program, known as the Common Framework.”
“It is the first time a declaration on debt has been issued since the COVID-19 pandemic, and the only topic on which finance ministers from all G20 countries — including the United States — reached enough of a consensus for a communiqué, my colleagues Elissa Miolene and Adva Saldinger write.”
So there you go – at least for now the possibility of progress without the US presence. Turning to COP30 to be held in Brazil in the rather remote city of Belém, what’s possible, maybe likely. Now in fact a leaders’ gathering has already begun. For Brazil the moment is ripe to make progress while the US is absent as Claire Brown of the NYTimes points out:
“In short: Brazil’s leaders are hoping to wrangle funding commitments from wealthy nations to help address climate change in developing countries. The broader goal (as ever) is to turn various climate pledges into action.”
“But some say that’s not such a bad thing, at least from a productivity perspective. Without Trump administration delegates leaning on other countries to abandon their plans to phase out fossil fuels, the thinking goes, the talks could go rather smoothly this year.”
In fact Brown points to another recent concluding negotiation where the US presence actually ‘killed’ an agreement:
“…the Trump team’s approach to another global climate negotiation: the International Maritime Organization’s plans to price carbon emissions in the shipping industry.”
“Last month, diplomats from around the world were poised to approve a years-in-the-making deal to reduce pollution from cargo ships. Then, Trump officials showed up and swiftly killed the deal, Friedman, Max Bearak and Jeanna Smialek reported.”
“U.S. representatives threatened [and] told Caribbean diplomats that they could be blacklisted from entering the United States. Other threats to nations ranged from tariffs to sanctions to the revocation of diplomatic visas, according to nine diplomats who spoke with The Times on the condition of anonymity.”
“It worked. But the hardball tactics stunned the delegates in attendance.”
“As the article points out, the United States has always thrown its weight around in global negotiations. But the tone and tenor of America’s behavior — in particular, representatives’ use of personal intimidation — seem to represent an escalation unique to Trump’s second term.”
As pointed out above, and described by the UN, COP30 commences with a Leaders gathering:
“The two-day World Leaders Climate Action Summit kicks off today bringing together heads of state and government, ministers, and leaders of international organizations to discuss pressing climate change challenges and commitments.”
Here is the hope for the gathering without the US, as described by Nigel Purvis at the FP:
“Ten years after its birth, Paris is at once the most successful climate accord in history and, so far, unable by itself to drive sufficient action to avert catastrophe. It is both alive and at risk of being deemed dead by a new generation of climate activists. Its fate, like Schrödinger’s cat, remains uncertain until observed. COP30 will give the world an opportunity for such a measurement. The summit will not produce a new treaty, but its political outcomes should show whether the Paris process can rise to meet the current political moment.”
“At the very least, political commitments in Belém might help make the Amazon a global model for sustainable agriculture and forest conservation. But those commitments, or the absence of them, will also reveal whether the Paris process can continue to turbocharge global climate action.”
The problem is where the US is under Trump:
“Nearly every nation joined. Most major economies now have net-zero goals for midcentury; developed nations have pledged to get there by or before 2050, whereas China and India, with more poverty and lower per capita emissions, have committed to do so by 2060 and 2070, respectively. Cumulatively, these net-zero commitments are driving domestic policy decisions in many nations in ways that few considered possible prior to Paris. Only the United States has ever withdrawn from the accord—and it has done so twice, both times under Trump.”
“None of this sits well with the MAGA foreign-policy crowd. They believe that U.S. global power depends on energy dominance. With China far ahead on many key green technologies (from EVs to solar panels and advanced batteries), keeping America on top economically requires, in the MAGA worldview, stopping the clean energy transition. However quixotic that vision is, it is one reason why Trump has sought to undermine the Paris accord. Recently, he successfully gutted global efforts to reduce climate pollution from international shipping by threatening economic retaliation against nations favoring regulation.”
Energy dominance and advancing the Paris Agreement are obviously in conflict:
“Yet, a decade on, the Paris system is under strain. A large number of countries did not fully implement the climate measures they promised for 2020 and 2025. Nations stepped up, but many also underdelivered. The new pollution reduction pledges submitted this year for 2030 and 2035, even if fully implemented, would fall short of what is needed to stay below 2 degrees—let alone 1.5.”
“To make matters worse, outside the U.N., negotiating halls many major economies are easing off the accelerator. The Trump administration’s all-out assault on climate policy, coupled with misinformation about climate science and risk, has made the United States—the world’s largest economy and historical emitter—a rogue state when it comes to addressing the global climate threat. That vacuum has allowed China, the largest current emitter and source of roughly 60 percent of recent emissions growth, to appear constructive simply by staying in the Paris process. In September, Beijing was both praised and criticized for pledging to cut emissions to 7-10 percent below peak levels by the early 2030s.”
“The Paris Agreement, then, is at a crossroads. And the Belém summit will be the first test of whether Paris can evolve to meet this new political moment: Can it help close the emissions gap, mobilize financial resources, and shift trade patterns commensurate with the scale of the crisis?”
Possibly its most immediate hope is the following:
“The most promising opportunity in Belém lies in the bioeconomy: the forests, food systems, and land sectors that together account for roughly a quarter of global emissions and could become a major source of carbon removal. Brazil, betting that sustainable growth in this sector can attract foreign investment and create jobs, has made the bioeconomy a centerpiece of its national climate strategy and the focus of COP30. This is why COP30 will occur in Belém, an otherwise odd choice—a remote city lacking the infrastructure to handle a major global conference.”
“Over the past two years, Brasília has invested substantial political capital in a proposal to reward tropical forest nations for conserving their standing forests. Brazil’s Tropical Forests Forever Fund (TFFF) initiative aims to create a $125 billion sovereign-backed investment facility to finance forest conservation by borrowing at a low cost from institutional investors and investing in global equity markets, which historically have provided higher returns. Profits, if any, would flow back to developing countries as payments for keeping carbon-rich forests intact for the world. The plan has drawn rhetorical—but not yet financial—support from across the Amazon region and some major powers, including Britain and China.”
“If COP30 produces tangible commitments to scale Brazil’s bioeconomy as a global model for protecting forests and creating sustainable prosperity, or if it comes up with a real plan to begin closing the overall gap in climate ambition and finance, Belém could mark the beginning of the next phase of Paris—one defined less by negotiations over rules than by mobilization of capital, technology, and political will.”
Much then rides on the gathering and its outcome(s). We will return to this negotiation as it meets and concludes.
Image Credit: New York Times
