Opinion | Can China and India step in to fill climate void left by Trump’s America?

The US’ absence from international deliberations on climate change must not be allowed to derail efforts to solve the crisis

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A firefighter battles the Palisades Fire near a burned structure in Los Angeles, on January 8. Photo: AP

Published: 8:30pm, 9 Mar 2025

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded its deliberations in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, recently. Predictably, there was a deadlock between the participants over the date by which the detailed, three-part assessment on the climate crisis – the seventh in the series – will be presented to the United Nations.

The report is a comprehensive review and a rigorously researched assessment of climate impacts, vulnerabilities and mitigation efforts. Some want the report to be prepared in time for the next “Global Stocktake”, a scorecard of climate mitigation efforts and goals identified in the Paris Agreement.

The first such stocktake concluded in 2023 at the 28th UN Climate Change Conference in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The next one is expected to be ready in 2028. However, the outcome at Hangzhou was merely to come up with a deadline later.

The talks got off to an inauspicious start when the US decided to pull out of the IPCC at the last minute at the behest of US President Donald Trump – an inflexible climate change sceptic. During his first term, Trump withdrew the US from the Paris Agreement, a feckless decision that he has since repeated, following the Biden administration’s reversal of his original decision.

Climate change deliberations have been hotly contested since the panel was set up in 1988 and, in recent decades, there has been bitter discord among various groups: rich and poor nations; major emitters of greenhouse gases and those with smaller carbon footprints; smaller island nations whose survival is threatened by sea-level rises and countries that are less vulnerable.

Multiple issues have been debated and negotiated intensely, including commitments such as nationally determined contributions and national adaptation plans.