Trump victory leaves China calling the shots at COP29 climate negotiations

With Donald Trump's election victory, the U.S. is headed again for the exits of the Paris accord, the international climate agreement signed nearly a decade ago, and toward an energy policy inspired by Trump's campaign mantra "drill, baby, drill."

- Matthew Dalton

China, on the other hand, appears more committed to the agreement than ever. It has vaulted to global leadership in renewable-energy deployment and is spending billions on green-energy projects across the developing world. Poorer nations increasingly look to Beijing for help shifting away from fossil fuels.

The sharp divergence between the two leading superpowers is expected to loom over the annual United Nations climate conference, known as COP29, kicking off in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Monday. Chinese leaders have thrown the country's titanic economic power behind the shift to clean energy for economic, environmental and geostrategic reasons.

"China stands ready to work with other parties to uphold the goal, principles and system of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said on Friday.

Trump's victory has underscored what many countries already believed: that America's internal political divisions mean it can't reliably lead global climate diplomacy. If Trump follows through on withdrawal, it would be the third time this century that a Republican president has pulled the U.S. out of a major international climate agreement.

"Everyone looks to China now," said Jonathan Pershing, a senior U.S. climate negotiator under the Obama and Biden administrations. "I think with the U.S. out, China will step up, but in a very different way."

Trump's victory has left U.S. negotiators in Baku with a short-lived mandate. They are led by John Podesta, the climate envoy of the lame duck Biden administration, who will have no influence on policy once Trump takes office on Jan. 20.