ON one of Donald Trump’s last days as lame-duck president in 2020, senior Democrats led by Nancy Pelosi rushed to US military generals to caution them against heeding any command from him that could start a nuclear war.
Whatever be the truth about the Democrats’ worry, the world was on edge. Then, the shoe was on the other foot. Biden followed a needle-and-thread policy — threading cavalier alliances and needling Russia and China into a rage. Much of the worried world responded by gravitating to BRICS. Biden and his secretary for state woke up every day to arm and finance the most gruesome slaughter of women and children since Hitler in Gaza. The Democrats thus helped Trump seem less menacing to the voters.
The Doomsday Clock is still at 90 minutes to midnight with Trump’s second win, continuing to remind humanity that the threat from manmade apocalypse hasn’t receded. The president-elect did sound unusually benign and even faux inclusive in his victory speech. On the flip side, he pressed the accelerator on the unfolding environmental catastrophe. “Nobody’s ever seen anything like that,” he exulted to cheering supporters, listing the cultural and ethnic mix that voted him to office. The thought alone should worry Democrats, who regard multiculturalism as their exclusive turf, in contrast to Trump’s white supremacist calling.
“They came from all corners. Union, non-union; African, Hispanic, Asian, Arab, Muslim; we had everybody, and it was beautiful,” he croaked. It’s always disturbing to hear gilded words from autocrats. Has a compulsively sectarian Trump bucked the trend to project himself as a leader of all Americans equally? In which case, the rivals are in deeper trouble than one thought.
The Doomsday Clock has kept a watch on signs of manmade calamity that Albert Einstein had feared. Global warming is somehow only now, and grudgingly, being seen as an existential threat to mankind, though Noam Chomsky had presciently called it as lethal as the bomb. Trump walked out of two momentous agreements in his first term, making the world insecure on both counts.
He ditched the Paris Agreement on climate change, and even today, remains unconvinced that the destruction Hurricane Helene wreaked on North Carolina during the election campaign could be a sign of nature paying back in kind. He also tore up the Iran pact, making it a factor today in war-gaming an Iran-Israel nuclear exchange as a possibility. Iranian officials say that a fatwa against the bomb could be lifted if the war with Israel so demands.
Trump’s cavalier comments in his victory speech on the primacy of fossil fuel ‘to make America great again’ could send shivers down the spine of climate activists gathered in Baku this week for the fortnight of deliberations at COP29. In one fell swoop, Trump destroyed any hopes environment activists may have had from Robert Kennedy Jr in the new team. He all but declared that the environment lawyer, who doubles as an anti-vaccine campaigner, could be assigned the health portfolio. Calling Kennedy to the stage, Trump anointed him. “He is going to make America healthy again.”
As for Kennedy’s concern for climate change, Trump pre-empted trouble. “Bobby, leave the oil to me. We have more liquid gold — oil and gas — We have more liquid gold than any country in the world; more than Saudi Arabia. We have more than Russia. Bobby, stay away from the liquid gold. Other than that, go have a good time, Bobby.”
Trump’s second win reminds humanity that the threat from manmade apocalypse hasn’t receded.
Trump’s astounding return, completely, albeit unsurprisingly, missed by pollsters, has brought unforeseen responses. An American-Canadian friend says she is surrendering her US citizenship because she finds Trump insufferable. Google searches for ‘move to Canada’ surged 1,270 per cent in the 24 hours after the US East Coast polls closed on Tuesday. Similar searches about moving to New Zealand climbed nearly 2,000pc, while those for Australia jumped 820pc.
It’s not dissimilar to a whole host of people who have left or are leaving India with the advent of Narendra Modi, heading not to Pakistan, where his rabid cheerleaders would have wanted dissenters to go, but to trickier climes. The recent repatriation by the Biden administration of dozens of illegal migrants from India is a good example.
Trump’s denial of climate change is envied by many of his fans who do not have the means to be as brazen. On the global stage, Narendra Modi, an ardent Trump fan, presents himself as a keen environment buff. “India is committed to clean energy and environment,” he said at the recent G20 summit in Delhi. Yet it is no secret that India will use coal for decades to come, even as it explores renewables to move towards net zero in 2070.
Three days before COP27 in Egypt, India’s finance minister showcased the doublespeak. “India needs greater investment in coal production,” said Nirmala Sitharaman at the Delhi launch of the country’s biggest-ever coal mine auction, where 141 new sites for coal mines were on offer. The move was rehearsed at the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow. That’s when India, backed by China, made a last-minute intervention to water down the language of the final agreement, changing the commitment to “phase down” rather than “phase out” coal power.
The fallout is palpable in the neighbourhood and beyond. The Maldives archipelago faces a watery doom, and vast swathes of Bangladesh would become uninhabitable as the sea encroaches. Pakistan, too, is reeling from the effects of climate change, not least since the 2022 flood fury.
The prime minister’s point person for environment, Romina Khurshid Alam, was preparing Pakistan’s talking points for Baku when Trump was drooling over the oil resources of America he had inherited in his victory. Ms Alam’s terror at the speed with which the mighty glaciers of the Hindu Kush are melting contrasts apocalyptically with the sight of Trump drooling over the oil wealth he plans to plunder to make America great again.
The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.
Published in Dawn, November 12th, 2024
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