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The wildfires ravaging Los Angeles have killed at least 10 people, displaced 180,000 and scorched about 40 square miles – an inferno driven by fierce winds and severe drought in what should be California’s wet season. It is a sobering reminder that the climate crisis is driving wildfires to become more frequent, intense and destructive – leaving ruined lives, homes and livelihoods in their wake. The US president Joe Biden responded by mobilising federal aid. By contrast the president-elect, Donald Trump, a convicted felon who was criminally sentenced on Friday, used the disaster to spread disinformation and stoke political division.
The climate crisis knows no national borders. Deadly floods in Spain, Hawaii’s fires and east Africa’s devastating drought show nowhere is safe from its effects. Countries must work toward the global common interest and beyond their narrow national interests. The scale of the climate emergency is such that there is a case to view all crises through a green lens. Instead Mr Trump’s denialism works to foment distrust about the science. He’s not just aiming to delay the onset of truth. He wants to demolish it. It’s a familiar playbook: the fossil fuel industry knows the reality of the climate emergency but chooses profit over responsibility, effectively deceiving the public while the planet burns.
The perils of weaponising doubt should be painfully clear in the week when scientists said 2024 was the first year to pass the symbolic 1.5C warming threshold, as well as the world’s hottest on record. Mr Trump’s politicisation of climate denial has supercharged it, turning scepticism into a badge of identity. When denial becomes ideological, facts turn irrelevant. That makes concerted climate action much harder to achieve.
Mr Trump’s return to power won’t halt America’s path to decarbonisation, but it will slow it disastrously. An analysis by Carbon Brief estimated last August that his return could add 4bn tonnes of US carbon emissions by 2030 compared to Democrat plans – inflicting $900bn in global climate damage. To grasp its scale, the emissions surge would equal the combined annual output of the EU and Japan or the emissions of the world’s 140 lowest-emitting countries. Confronting the climate emergency demands more than facts; it requires dismantling the political machinery that breeds denialism. The link between the current model of economic growth and the depth of environmental collapse is undeniable. Yet in the face of the overwhelming evidence, too many on the political right cling to denial or place blind faith in the free market.
This is an age of “hyper agency” – where billionaires, rogue states and corporations wield almost unchecked power, fuelling climate chaos and global instability. The mechanisms meant to hold power to account are being dismantled with ruinous consequences. Without urgent action, the next disaster won’t be a warning. It will be irreversible. While not much can be expected from Mr Trump, the European “green deal” is too small to plug this year’s projected shortfall in private investment, let alone meet EU commitments under the Paris climate agreement. Climate denialism ought to be confronted with bold policies; business must be held accountable for its role in this crisis; and voters need to see through the rightwing populist parties who prioritise profit over the planet. The next catastrophe isn’t a distant threat, it’s already in motion. Only immediate and determined action can stop global heating from becoming humanity’s undoing.
