This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com.
Who says President Trump doesn't have a coherent foreign policy? Pundits and critics across the political spectrum have chided him for failing to articulate and implement a clear international agenda. Look closely at his overseas endeavors, though, and one all-too-consistent pattern emerges: Donald Trump will do whatever it takes to prolong the reign of fossil fuels by sabotaging efforts to curb carbon emissions and promoting the global consumption of U.S. oil, coal, and natural gas. Whenever he meets with foreign leaders, it seems, his first impulse is to ply them with American fossil fuels.
His decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, which obliged this country to reduce its coal consumption and take other steps to curb its carbon emissions, was widely covered by the American mainstream news media. On the other hand, the president's efforts to promote greater fossil fuel consumption abroad -- just as significant in terms of potential harm to the planet -- have received remarkably little attention.
Bear in mind that while Trump's drive to sabotage international efforts to curb carbon emissions will undoubtedly slow progress in that area, it will hardly stop it. At the recent G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, 19 of the leaders of the world's 20 largest economies reaffirmed their commitment to the Paris accord and pledged to "mitigate greenhouse gas emissions through, among other [initiatives], increased innovation on sustainable and clean energies." This means that whatever Trump does, continuing innovation in the energy field will indeed help reduce global greenhouse gas emissions and so slow the advance of climate change. Unfortunately, Trump's relentless drive to promote fossil-fuel consumption abroad could ensure that carbon emissions continue to rise anyway, neutralizing whatever progress might be made elsewhere and dooming humanity to a climate-ravaged future.
How the two sides of the ledger -- green energy progress versus Trump's drive to boost carbon exports -- will balance out in the years ahead cannot be foreseen. Every boost in carbon emissions, however, pushes us closer to the moment when global temperatures will exceed the two degrees Celsius rise from pre-industrial levels that scientists say is the maximum the planet can absorb without suffering catastrophic consequences. Those would include rising sea levels that could drown New York, Miami, Shanghai, London, and many other coastal cities, as well as a sharp drop in global food production that could devastate entire populations.
Spreading the Cult of Carbon
President Trump's pursuit of increased global carbon consumption is proving to be a two-front campaign. He's working in every way imaginable to increase the production of fossil fuels domestically, even as he engages in a diplomatic blitzkreig to open doors to American fossil-fuel exports abroad.
At home, he's already reversed numerous Obama-era restrictions on fossil fuel extraction, including curbs on mountaintop removal -- an environmentally hazardous form of coal mining -- and on oil and gas drilling in Arctic waters off Alaska. He's also ordered the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Scott Pruitt -- a notorious enemy of environmental regulations opposed by the energy industry -- to dismantle the Clean Power Plan, President Obama's program to sharply reduce the use of coal in domestic electricity generation.
These and similar initiatives have gotten a fair amount of media attention already, but it's no less important to focus on another key aspect of Trump's pro-carbon global initiative which has gone largely unnoticed. While, under the Paris climate accord, the other industrial powers are still obliged to help developing countries install carbon-free energy technologies, Trump has freed himself to sell American fossil fuels everywhere to his heart's content. At that G-20 meeting, for example, he forced his peers to insert a clause in their final communique' stating, "The United States of America states it will endeavor to work closely with other countries to help them access and use fossil fuels more cleanly and efficiently." (The "more cleanly and efficiently" was undoubtedly his modest concession to the other 19 leaders.)
To spread the mantra of fossil fuels, Trump has become the nation's carbon-pusher in chief. He's already personally engaged in energy diplomacy, while demanding that various cabinet officials make oil, gas, and coal exports a priority. On June 29th, for instance, he publicly ordered the Treasury Department to do away with "barriers to the financing of highly efficient overseas coal energy plants." In the same speech, he spoke of his desire to supply American coal to Ukraine, currently cut off from Russian natural gas thanks to its ongoing conflict with that country. "Ukraine already tells us they need millions and millions of metric tons [of coal] right now," Trump said, pointing out that there are many other countries in a similar state, "and we want to sell it to them, and to everyone else all over the globe who needs it."
He added, "We are a top producer of petroleum and the number-one producer of natural gas. We have so much more than we ever thought possible, and we're going to be an exporter... We will export American energy all over the world, all around the globe."
In his urge to preserve the reign of fossil fuels, President Trump has already taken on a unique personal role, meeting with foreign officials and promoting cooperation with key American energy firms. Take the June 26th White House visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. While the media reported on how the two of them took up the subject of future arms sales to India, it made no mention of energy deals. Yet Secretary of Energy Rick Perry revealed that this topic was crucial to their encounter. At a Trump-hosted dinner for Modi at the White House, Perry reported, "we talked about the three areas of which there will be great back-and-forth cooperation -- deal-making, if you will. One of those is in LNG [liquefied natural gas]. The other side of that is in clean coal. Thirdly is on the nuclear side. So there is great opportunity for India and the United States to become even stronger allies, stronger partners -- energy being the glue that will hold that partnership together for a long, long time."
To put this in context, making deals to sell coal to India is like selling OxyContin to an opioid addict. After all, in 2015, that country overtook the United States to become the world's second-biggest consumer of coal (after China). To keep up the pace of its rapid economic growth, India had plans to increase its reliance on coal yet more, which would mean a steady increase in carbon emissions. India now trails only China and the United States as an emitter of carbon dioxide and its share is expected to grow. However, it is also likely to suffer disproportionately from climate change, which its emissions will only accelerate. Given that future extreme heat events are expected to periodically destroy crops on which a large part of its population depends, Modi's government has recently begun seeking ways to reduce the country's long-term reliance on fossil fuels, in part by becoming a solar superpower. In other words, in pitching coal to India -- a true case of bringing coals to Newcastle (or at least Mumbai) -- Trump is functionally working to sabotage India's struggle to free itself from the scourge of carbon addiction.
He similarly pushed fossil-fuel exports in his first encounter with newly elected South Korean President Moon Jae-in. Not surprisingly, press coverage of the event highlighted their discussions about the nuclear threat posed by North Korea. Some reports also noted that trade issues came up, but none mentioned energy matters. Yet, shortly before his state dinner with Moon, Trump announced that a U.S. company, Sempra Energy, had just that day signed an agreement to sell more American natural gas to South Korea. "And, as you know," he added, "the leaders of South Korea are coming to the White House today, and we've got a lot of discussion to do, but we will also be talking about them buying energy from the United States of America, and I'm sure they'll like to do it." In other words, the president has made it eminently clear how foreign leaders in need of American support can please him.
His first overseas trips have also featured versions of such pitchmanship. During his visit to Saudi Arabia in May, he evidently sought to promote cooperation between U.S. and Saudi energy firms. Again, press coverage of his meeting with Saudi King Salman highlighted other topics, notably the war on terror, the regional divide between Sunnis and Shiites, and new Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's hard line on Iran. But the two of them did, in fact, issue a statement affirming "the importance of investment in energy by companies in both countries, and the importance of coordinating policies that ensure the stability of markets and an abundance of supplies." Where this might lead is anyone's guess, but presumably to a commitment to the continued dominance of petroleum in the world's future energy markets.
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