Andreas Sieber is the Associate Director of Policy and Campaigns at 350.org.
Trump has such a passion for tariffs he even imposed them on Antarctic islands – home only to penguins, who presumably pose a grave threat to American industry.
Now that the dust is settling – with global stock markets down and US dollar inflation up – two things are clear: the US president’s enthusiasm far outstrips his economic competence; and his shiny new tariffs won’t stop the global energy transition, no matter how hard he tries.
Donald Trump’s tariffs will harm the US economy and working families. But different from what some might fear, the tariffs won’t stop wind and solar energy. The United States’ share in the global cleantech trade is simply too marginal to dictate its terms in this sector. Other than Antarctic penguins, the global energy transition is safe from Trump’s tariffs.
Emerging economies set to dominate
A decade ago, Trump’s tariffs could have delivered a significant blow to the global energy transition: developed economies dominated solar and wind installations – accounting for roughly 70% of solar and 50% of wind capacity additions between 2010 and 2015.
Since then, two major developments must be taken into account. First, emerging economies’ share in renewable installations and the cleantech trade have boomed while the share of installations in advanced economies, including the US, has shrunk significantly. In 2009, about one in four solar panels was installed in the United States. In 2024, less than one in 12 renewable projects globally were added in the US.
According to the International Energy Agency, emerging and developing economies are set to dominate clean energy markets by 2030 – claiming 70% of solar PV, 60% of wind, and 60% of battery storage capacity.
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Additionally, the US has not only isolated itself on cleantech in the last week, it has increasingly done so over the past 10 years. Today, China is by far the world’s largest producer and exporter of solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicles – yet only 4% of those products go to the US, compared to 15% of China’s overall exports. In a market with growth dynamics like the green tech market has, tariffs on a 4% share of this market are a mere footnote.
China exported 235.93 gigawatts (GW) of solar modules in 2024, a market it dominates in an unparalleled manner, marking a 13% year-on-year increase from 207.99 GW in 2023. While impressive, the 13% of solar panel exports are small compared to other cleantech: China’s exports of wind turbines surged by over 70% last year. In the global cleantech race, the US is becoming a shrinking, isolated player.
Too poor to buy American luxury goods
None of this suggests Trump’s tariffs are harmless. Far from it – they will hit working families and poorer nations hardest. The former president insists he understands economic policy, but reality paints a different picture. Not only has he repeatedly conflated trade deficits with tariffs – a confusion that would earn a failing grade in any Economics 101 course – but analysts now expect U.S. inflation to rise faster than in almost any other major economy, surpassing even Canada, the EU, and many of the very countries targeted by his trade measures.
It’s the working people he claims to defend who will bear the brunt of these price hikes. Ironically, if the revenue from tariffs is used for anything by the Trump administration, it will be to pay for massive tax cuts for the wealthy.
Meanwhile, markets are stumbling, and the erratic choreography of tariff threats, reversals, and ultimatums has spooked investors, in particular in the US. No one really knows what’s next. Should they swallow the cost of more expensive imports, or gamble on domestic production in uncertainty? With investor confidence sliding to levels unseen since the COVID-19 shock, “America First” increasingly resembles “Economics Last”.
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The persistent conflation of trade deficits with tariffs does more than reveal economic illiteracy – it inflicts real harm, particularly on poorer nations. The notion that all countries must maintain perfectly balanced trade is, at best, a fantasy. Consider Madagascar, where GDP per capita hovers just above $500. The US imports vanilla and critical minerals from the country. Yet the United States imposes trade penalties on Madagascar and many similar countries as if it were a competitive threat – despite the obvious reality that no one in Antananarivo, Cambodia, or Botswana is lining up to buy a Tesla.
Free trade is no silver bullet, and forcing developing economies in particular to open up their markets has historically done harm. But now, Trump is punishing people for being too poor to buy American luxury goods.
Protectionism or co-operation by the rest of the world?
The more urgent question now is how the rest of the world might recalibrate trade relations with each other – not just in retaliation against the United States. Will Trump’s tariffs trigger a broader shift toward protectionism, prompting countries to erect new trade barriers among themselves under the guise of “strategic autonomy”? This could indeed threaten the pace of transition efforts.
The US is drifting into economic isolation. Canada and Mexico have previously aligned their tariff responses; China, Japan and South Korea, though not formally coordinated, seem to be synchronising their strategies with more or less quiet efficiency.
Climate and the energy transition remain textbook examples of why Trump’s zero-sum instincts are wholly unfit for purpose. Global cooperation on climate is not optional. Even countries locked in geopolitical tension must find ways to collaborate on decarbonization – unless, of course, the plan is to compete all the way to climate collapse.
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For too long, European leaders have indulged in the futile art of appeasing Donald Trump – among various avenues, by pledging to absorb vast surpluses of American liquefied natural gas. The irony, of course, is that this LNG isn’t needed; worse still, it risks locking Europe into years of inflated energy costs for consumers.
The strategy of placation has plainly failed. Doubling down on dependency through new US LNG deals is short-sighted on multiple levels – not just for those concerned about climate, but for anyone with even a passing interest in economic sovereignty.
Trump may have shocked the world, but he has equally exposed himself as a bully – one whose policies are not only reckless and unreliable but, frankly, embarrassingly misguided. The good news is the US cannot dictate the terms of cleantech trade and the energy transition. The world should move forward without him and keep climate and renewables as a critical area of cooperation and prosperity.
The post Trump’s tariff tantrum won’t stop the global energy transition appeared first on Climate Home News.
Trump’s tariff tantrum won’t stop the global energy transition
Next week, diplomats from around the world will descend on Yerevan, Armenia, to negotiate a series of decisions under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
Between 19 and 30 October, 196 parties will gather to hammer out the precise wording of the dozens of legal texts that make up the decisions under the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the CBD.
This year’s summit is particularly significant, as it marks the halfway point between the agreement of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and the deadline for achieving its targets.
The CBD has found that countries are currently not on track to meet 22 out of the framework’s 23 targets.
During the fortnight, delegates will also be negotiating decisions relating to the two supplemental protocols to the CBD: the Cartagena Protocol, which covers biosafety; and the Nagoya Protocol, which covers access and benefit-sharing for the use of genetic resources.
(The Cartagena and Nagoya Protocols, which are each governed by a “meeting of the parties”, or “MOP”, have fewer parties than the CBD as a whole, with 173 and 141, respectively.)
Carbon Brief is tracking the progress of countries towards consensus on dozens of negotiating texts using the interactive table below.
The tracker includes texts from the COP, as well as the MOPs for the Cartagena and Nagoya protocols. It also includes draft decisions from the most recent subsidiary body meetings, as these form the starting point for the negotiations in Yerevan.
The CBD has three subsidiary bodies: the subsidiary body on scientific, technical and technological advice (SBSTTA), the subsidiary body on implementation (SBI) and the subsidiary body on article 8(j) and other provisions (SB8J).
SB8J focuses on issues related to the Indigenous peoples and local communities. It was established at COP16 in Cali, Colombia, in 2024.
The first two columns of the interactive tracker list the topic of each agenda item and the relevant body, with subsequent columns including dates, page counts and links to the original documents.
The table is searchable and can be sorted using the arrows in the header.
Areas of disagreement in UN draft texts are denoted by square brackets. Counting the brackets in a particular iteration of a text therefore gives a sense of how far parties are from reaching consensus.
The bracket column is colour-coded, with dark green indicating a low number of brackets and red indicating a high number of brackets remaining.
Texts can also present parties with choices using “options” or alternatives (“alt”), which are counted together in the sixth column of the table.
The key discussions in Yerevan will centre around two agenda items in particular. The first is the global review, which will assess progress towards the GBF and make recommendations for accelerating action.
The second is finance, which can be separated into two parts: resource mobilisation and the financial mechanism. On resource mobilisation, biodiverse global south countries are likely to push for an increased amount of international finance for conservation.
Disagreement over the creation of the financial mechanism led to the suspension of COP16 in Cali in October 2024, as parties failed to find agreement on the mobilisation of finance before the end of the summit.
Global south countries want the establishment of a separate financial mechanism under the control of the CBD; global north countries largely prefer to maintain the existing mechanism, which sits under the Global Environment Facility.
At the resumed session of COP16 in Rome in early 2025, countries agreed on a roadmap that would lead to the establishment of a permanent mechanism.
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The post Interactive: Tracking negotiating texts at the COP17 biodiversity summit appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Interactive: Tracking negotiating texts at the COP17 biodiversity summit
A beacon of love
On an outer island of Fiji, two thousand nautical miles from Sydney, is a shining light of hope and resilience for our troubled world.
The island of Kioa is home to a Tuvaluan community who migrated from their atoll of Vaitupu in the late 1940s. It is a land of warm hearts, big smiles, and deep cultural roots; a place where the sound of a conch still summons the island together, where islanders paddle out to fish in carved outrigger canoes, and healthy happy children walk barefoot to school.
Here, culture is life. Kioans live sustainably through their traditional knowledge and practices. The island is alive with song, dance and the rhythms of a life tied to the tides, the winds, and the seasons.
Facing the future
Greenpeace has been lucky to have a relationship with Kioa for a number of years now, and we are continually learning from this remarkable community.
Last week, as part of our Voyaging Oceania project, we returned to the island. Our purpose was twofold —- to carry messages from the island to leaders gathering in Nadi this week for the Pacific Pre-COP, and to support the Kioa community in their efforts to improve water security for the island.
Unlike Tuvalu itself, with its eight atolls, Kioa is a mountainous, forested and richly fertile island. It will remain habitable far into the future. Kioans did not initially migrate from Vaitupu due to climate change, but the move was prophetic. They now have a lifeboat.
However, even Kioa faces challenges on our rapidly warming planet, in particular when it comes to water. Climate change is shifting once reliable rainfall patterns. On top of this, the island is already feeling the effect of this year’s intensifying El Niño event, which for Fiji means reduced rainfall and prolonged dry spells.
Right now, fresh water has to be carefully rationed, and is only available for a few hours a day. During last week’s visit aboard our campaigning ship Oceania, Greenpeace was privileged to work with the Kioa community on a new solar-powered water distribution project for the island.
Designed and led by the island, the project involves using a solar pump to move water from a reliable source to a storage tank and then using gravity to distribute the water around the village.
It was a lesson in how local knowledge and ingenuity can be the backbone of today’s climate solutions. To build a dam around the source, the local community knew the exact spot where they could gather gravel at low tide to mix with the cement. They took only what was needed, knowing that all resources must be carefully conserved. Kioa has no roads and no machinery, and it was an all-of-island effort to carry the materials up to the project site, including many heavy bags of sand and rock.
Such projects truly bring to life the vision of a resilient, locally-led, fossil fuel free Pacific.