Why Climate Mayors Feel Buoyed by US Elections
When Donald Trump removed the US from the Paris Agreement in his first term, mayors jumped in with pledges to cut their cities’ emissions. The same pattern is unfolding this time around — and the results of Tuesday’s US elections have mayors around the world feeling cautiously optimistic.
Today’s newsletter talks with some of the leaders of the world’s greenest and largest cities. Plus, we look at why the US economy “wins” if it abandons its climate goals — and what that means for the rest of the world.
It’s an important consideration as the first leg of the COP30 journey starts in the Brazilian city of Belém today. The two-day leaders’ summit will gather over 50 heads of government and set the tone for the technical negotiations kicking off on Monday. Our team is on the ground working to bring you everything you need to know, including an exclusive podcast interview with COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago.
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Mayors on a mission
By Peter Millard, Mariana Durao, and Beatriz Amat
The big wins by Democrats in Tuesday’s elections across the US turned into a rallying cry at an environmental conference in Rio de Janeiro.
Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London and co-chair of C40 Cities, a global network of major cities committed to tackling climate change, stayed up all night watching CNN to find out what happened to many of his counterparts in the US.
“I don’t apologize for being very happy,” said Khan to applause while speaking Wednesday in Rio. “Every candidate Donald Trump backed lost.”
Democrats registered their largest political gains since a stinging loss to Trump a year ago, racking up wins in state and local races in locations including Virginia, New Jersey, New York and California, as the party coalesced around a message of economic affordability. Those results reverberated at a gathering of local leaders from around the world in Rio, just before next week’s start of the COP30 United Nations climate talks in the Brazilian rainforest city of Belém.
There are signs of progress at the city level. Most C40 cities have passed peak emissions, according to a report by the group. Stockholm and Copenhagen led the charge, with both slashing emissions by more than 40% in the past decade, buoyed by progressive European Union, national and city policies, the report found.
Investments in renewables, efficient energy and mobility upgrades are the main reasons for the emissions cuts, Copenhagen Mayor Lars Weiss said in an interview. The next step is how to deal with the construction sector, he said.
Many mayors, even those from outside the US, looked to the election results as a signal that green initiatives can survive the Trump administration’s attempts to lead a global turn away from climate policies.
Three-quarters of the US economy is still committed to combating climate change, said Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, who also spoke at the Rio event hosted by Bloomberg Philanthropies as part of the COP30 Local Leaders Forum.
Gallego, who chairs the Climate Mayors network, spent a lot of her time in Rio explaining to global counterparts that a majority of the US supports setting global climate targets. The outcome of the elections, where 41 candidates associated with the network were victorious, made that job easier, she said.
“Our climate mayors did very well on the ballot,” said Gallego, who also drew applause. “We want to send this message from the US.”
Read the full story. To track how cities and states are filling in the climate gaps, please subscribe to Bloomberg News.
More than emissions cuts needed
Differing priorities
“Right now, my city is going through extreme heat. We contribute the least but suffer the most. Climate change challenges are real.”
Chilando Chitangala
Mayor of Lusaka, Zambia
Mayors from the Global South underscored the need to find funds to adapt to climate change, a problem their citizens have contributed relatively little to. Those sentiments mirror ones likely to play out at the country level at COP30 talks next week.
A lackluster summit
World leaders are set to deliver a message of solidarity and renewed resolve to address global warming days before the start of the COP30 climate summit in Brazil, despite lackluster attendance and the erosion of a key goal to curb rising temperatures.
It’s a challenging backdrop for the more than 50 heads of state and government ministers expected in the Amazonian city of Belém on Thursday and Friday. Gone is the confidence and sense of grand ambition that united nearly 200 nations a decade ago, with the adoption of the landmark Paris Agreement. Left in its place is a gnawing sense of urgency and the hard reality of implementing some climate promises, especially as the accord’s most ambitious goal — to limit warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels — moves further out of grasp.
The leaders summit is only a prelude to the official negotiations that begin Monday. Still, exhortations from heads of state can help frame the conference and galvanize action.
Among the most notable absences will be the heads of the world’s top emitters. China’s President Xi Jinping and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi are forgoing an in-person address, and Trump is shunning a conference meant to address the climate crisis he’s derided as a “scam.” Trump is pulling the US out of the Paris Agreement, a process that will be finalized on Jan. 27.
Further distracting the attention from the talks are mounting regional fears about a US military intervention in Venezuela. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, together with other leaders, will travel from Belém to Colombia over the weekend to discuss Trump’s intensifying threats against Venezuela.
Read the full story on what to expect from the COP30 leaders’ summit starting today, and on the local and international crises keeping Lula busy on Bloomberg.com.
This week’s COP30 listen
World leaders are gathering in Belem, Brazil, for the COP30 climate negotiations, but what will be achieved? Brazil hasn’t given much indication of what it hopes will emerge from the negotiations, other than implementing the many promises of previous COPs. This week on Zero, Akshat Rathi sits down with COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago, to try and figure out how the negotiations might turn out.
Listen now, and subscribe on Apple, Spotify or YouTube to get new episodes of Zero every Thursday.
How the US “wins” the climate game
By Emma Court
Slashing green energy goals and doubling down on fossil fuels, the kinds of policies Trump has been pushing, would benefit the US economy in the long run — and hurt countries still betting on the green transition.
Bloomberg Economics looked at how climate change and the cost of curbing emissions will affect nations’ economies through 2050. They found that by selling more fossil fuels and avoiding the expense of meeting green regulations, the US would see its GDP grow by about 1% more than it would have had it continued the clean energy transition. But assuming other countries plow forward with renewable energy, the world economy overall would shrink by 0.2% compared to the baseline scenario, according to the modeling.
While these economic effects may look modest over the next 25 years, most of the physical damage from global warming is expected to happen after 2050, increasing the economic costs of extreme weather and other consequences of climate inaction for everyone, the researchers said. There’s also the added risk that climate change could accelerate in irreversible ways, they said.
“If Trump alone backs out on the transition, the US wins,” Bloomberg Economics’ Eleonora Mavroeidi and Maeva Cousin, who co-authored the new report, write. “If other countries do the same, the US loses, and so does almost everyone else.”
Read the full story on Bloomberg.com.
More from Green
Brazil presented its vision for how to rewire the global financial system in order to provide $1.3 trillion per year to developing countries by 2035. The “Baku to Belém roadmap to $1.3T,” which Brazil wrote with last year’s COP host, Azerbaijan, leans heavily on reforming key financial institutions, including the International Monetary Fund, to channel climate funds to poorer nations. The report also floats potential new sources of revenue, such as taxes on financial transactions and the ultra-wealthy.
Read more about the roadmap.
Hedge funds are lobbying hard to ensure the UK excludes it from new climate regulations, after prevailing in a similar campaign in the EU.
Hurricane Melissa became the most powerful storm on record to strike Jamaica in part because of water made hotter and air made wetter by global warming.
Experts on China’s climate and energy policies expect the world’s top polluter to outperform fresh emissions-reduction targets that have been criticized as too timid.
Photo finish
Water dispensers, rugs, plants, wooden tables and chairs piled up at the COP30 venue in Belém this morning, with workers rushing to finish the job ahead of the official start of the talks on Monday. Our reporter Jennifer Dlouhy is there, as are the rest of Bloomberg News’ reporters and editors covering this year’s most important climate talks.
Subscribe to Green Daily for more updates on COP30.