US has all but ceded climate helm to China

What happens if the United States is not ready to lead the world in its pursuit of clean energy transition? US President Donald Trump has unnerved the world with his policy moves and public comments, including those on climate change. During his meetings with top world leaders, Trump has ignored climate change and instead focused on national security and trade. It's another matter that climate change had been a major area of cooperation among China, the US, the European Union and Japan.

At the start of last year, the US was well positioned to lead the global fight against climate change. But last month Trump issued an executive order, rewriting the previous US administration's Clean Power Plan. He also ordered a recalculation of the social cost of carbon, lifting the moratorium on coal mining on federal land, and that climate change be disregarded in other areas of national policymaking.

By reversing his predecessor Barack Obama's policies on clean energy and carbon emissions, Trump is rolling back the new model of cooperative global governance embodied in the 2015 Paris climate agreement. The Obama administration had argued that other countries' commitment (along with that of the US) to reducing emissions under the Paris agreement was expected to create a big new market for the US' clean energy companies.