LONDON — The budget of the U.K.’s new publicly-owned power company Great British Energy has been raided to fund a longstanding government commitment to develop mini nuclear reactors. Labour’s manifesto committed to spending £8.3 billion over five years on GB Energy to “deliver clean power” projects across the country. But its budget for investing in renewables like wind and solar is now less than £6 billion, after Rachel Reeves’ spending review assigned £2.5 billion of its funding package to develop small modular reactors (SMRs) — small-scale nuclear power plants that will be quicker and easier to build than traditional plants — including through a government partnership with Rolls-Royce. The SMR program, run by government agency Great British Nuclear (GBN), dates back to 2023 and the previous Conservative government. Rolls-Royce was announced as the government’s partner this week, alongside the £2.5 billion investment figure. GBN was rebranded Great British Energy–Nuclear and is newly described as an “allied company” to GB Energy. Spending review documents published Wednesday state that “Great British Energy and Great British Energy–Nuclear will invest more than £8.3 billion over this parliament in homegrown clean power.” Two government officials denied that the decision amounted to a cut to GB Energy’s budget, pointing to a reference in the company’s founding statement that raised the possibility of GBN’s functions being “aligned” with the new company. A third government official said the decision had come “very last minute” in the days before Reeves’ spending review. The officials were granted anonymity to speak freely about the decision. The documents also show that £4 billion of GB Energy’s budget is categorized as “financial transaction” funding, which means it can be used for grants and minority investments in clean energy, but which cannot be used to own and operate projects. The third government official said this would limit the firm’s freedom and amounted to an attempt by the Treasury to assert control over the fledgling public energy firm. The Treasury declined to comment on the record.

LONDON — The U.K. can find a way to work with Donald Trump’s America on energy security while still retaining close cooperation with China on climate and renewables, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said. Speaking at a London energy summit, Miliband told POLITICO that, despite having a “different perspective” to the Trump administration on the role of fossil fuels in securing energy supply, the U.K. could still collaborate on low-carbon technologies like nuclear and geothermal power. Trump administration official Tommy Joyce used his appearance at the Future of Energy Security summit on Thursday to rail against allies’ net zero goals and to warn of a growing global dependence on China for clean energy technology. But Miliband sought to cool temperatures. “Despite the differences, we can find common ground,” he said. “Issues like nuclear cooperation are issues where we can work together with the U.S. We might be doing it with a different perspective but we can work together.” On China, which has not sent a delegation to the summit, Miliband said that “cooperation” on climate change was a “no brainer” but acknowledged concerns about Beijing’s dominance of global supply chains for clean energy technology like solar, wind and electric cars. “There is too much concentration in the clean energy market and one of the things we need is greater diversity,” Miliband said. The solution, he said, was to promote manufacturing of clean technology at home, pointing to £300 million of newly-announced investment by the Labour government’s embryonic state-run power company, GB Energy. Reducing reliance on China “starts with actually taking seriously a proper industrial policy where you start to build it in Britain,” Miliband said. The U.K., he added, should be emulating China’s economic success in investing in the energy transition. “Clean energy is also an economic opportunity, China recognizes that. Chinese growth was 40 percent higher last year because of their investment in clean energy. Why don’t we have some of that too?”

The European Commission’s state aid rules for the Clean Industrial Deal aim to stoke demand for clean-tech products and ease investments from “risk averse” pension funds, according to a draft obtained by POLITICO. The document is due to be published on Feb. 26 as part of the European Union’s Clean Industrial Deal, a wide package of measures to help industry reduce its climate emissions. Executive Vice President Teresa Ribera had been tasked with finding ways to simplify and extend state aid to businesses. While the Commission is set to cap subsidies for clean-tech manufacturing at €75 million per project, down from €150 million under a current program, it also opened up new options for governments to fund industry decarbonization and renewable energy production. It also sets a €350 million limit for loans and caps state guarantees at €525 million for clean-tech businesses in some regions, part of a range of measures that also allow governments to pay up to 50 percent of investments in equipment or machinery using hydrogen and 35 percent for equipment to produce renewable energy. It spoke of the need to incentivize investments in Europe where “considerable funds will need to be mobilised, mainly from private sources.” “Public support will be necessary to advance decarbonisation efforts,” it said, and the framework intends to provide “a longer planning horizon and businesses with investment predictability and security” and help “the de-risking of investments in portfolios of projects” to encourage more risk-averse pension funds and insurers. It said governments could also introduce tax incentives to help companies purchase clean-tech assets not necessarily within state aid control — as long as they didn’t favor certain companies. Separately, the draft shows the Commission trying to funnel more help to smaller companies and disadvantaged regions. Industry groups were positive about the updates. Stefan Sagebro, from the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise, said the clean-tech thresholds are “not unreasonable” since they are aimed at the “mass production of goods where there is intense competition” and where officials should be “more careful” about providing subsidies. Vincent van Hoorn, of the lobbying group Cleantech for Europe, said the framework needed to “marry speed and agility to provide much more predictability to clean-tech entrepreneurs.” He was glad to see the Commission recognizing “the unique advantages of fiscally efficient tools such as guarantees.”

Jean Pisani-Ferry and Simone Tagliapietra are senior fellows at Bruegel. Laurence Tubiana is the CEO of the European Climate Foundation. Since European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was reelected last July, her message on the future of the green transition has been clear and consistent: We will stay the course on the goals of the European Green Deal, and will put forward a strong Clean Industrial Deal — marrying decarbonization with industrial competitiveness — in order to ensure this happens. And with the new administration in Washington, delivering on these two promises is more important than ever. U.S. President Donald Trump’s fossil-fuel agenda might be in America’s interest, but it certainly has no content for a fossil-fuel poor continent like Europe. And accelerating decarbonization is the only structural way to reduce the bloc’s energy costs and increase energy security. It’s also important to remember that while the Trump presidency poses new challenges, it presents new opportunities as well — starting with the clean tech sector, which it has thrown into deep uncertainty. Europe has the potential to play an important role here, but it will have to move fast, and be smart and more united than before. The new Competitiveness Compass is a first step in this direction, identifying the Clean Industrial Deal as one of the three pillars of the EU’s new competitiveness strategy, alongside innovation and economic security. However, it’s high time the EU turned its strategic planning into real action. We will, of course, gain more clarity as to what lies ahead when the Clean Industrial Deal and the Omnibus Simplification Package are finally launched on Feb. 26. They will tell us just how far the EU is willing to go to deliver on von der Leyen’s green promises. And considering ongoing tensions between those who want to maintain Europe’s climate ambitions and those who would like to give the matter a substantial rethink — or “pause” — we can’t take the outcome for granted. That’s why, ahead of the expected flurry of proposals, we would like to suggest two key areas of focus that might help untangle the bloc’s direction of travel. First, when it comes to the Clean Industrial Deal, we suggest looking at financing. Simply put, it’s impossible to have a solid clean industrial strategy without credible investment to underpin it. Building on previous Commission analyses, we can estimate that delivering the deal’s objectives might entail additional annual investments to the order of €50 billion by 2030. And though this figure appears substantial, it might actually be quite conservative, as it doesn’t take into consideration the potential cost of escalating global trade tensions or the re-skilling programs necessary for workers during the transition. The private sector is expected to deliver most of the investment needed, but the public sector will continue to play an important role in de-risking and helping to unleash private capital. And doing so will be arduous, as both EU and national policymakers are set to face growing constraints, like the end of the NextGenerationEU recovery package, the lack of a green carve-out in the bloc’s reformed fiscal framework, and increasing pressure to refocus public resources on defense. That’s why the Clean Industrial Deal can’t come up empty handed on this. It can’t limit itself to general pledges on the future budget either — the new cycle won’t start until 2028, and it will already be an uphill battle to retain the current minimum share of climate-related spending. It needs be equipped with immediate financial firepower. Trump presidency poses new challenges, it presents new opportunities as well — starting with the clean tech sector. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images Next, with the Omnibus Simplification Package, we recommend examining whether or not “simplification” equates to dismantling green regulations. Reopening the core text of important green regulations — things like the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive or the Taxonomy Regulation — would inevitably water down these provisions substantially. It would hit investors who promptly started adapting to the new regulatory framework, as well as third countries that already started following the EU’s lead. Essentially, it would compromise the long-term regulatory stability and policy credibility that’s key for private investors. Therefore, it would be wiser for the Commission to focus on targeted actions at the technical level of these regulations instead — making the overall framework simpler, clearer and thus more effective. This package might be domestic, but it will have international repercussions in terms of the credibility of Europe’s climate policy. Watering down these provisions would cause major reputational damage to the EU — and it would fuel global anti-climate policy impulses at a time when the bloc must lead global climate momentum to fill the gap left by Trump.

The Norwegian government collapsed Thursday after the Euroskeptic Centre Party left the two-party coalition after weeks of brawling over the adoption of three EU energy directives, local media reported. Their exit leaves Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre’s center-left Labour Party to govern on its own for the first time in 25 years. Norway, while not part of the EU, has to adopt the bloc’s laws as a member of the European Economic Area (EEA). The agrarian Centre Party is strongly against the EEA agreement, which gives Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein access to the EU’s internal market. Centre Party leader and Finance Minister Trygve Slagsvold Vedum said he could not accept the directives in the EU’s fourth clean energy package, which aims to increase renewable energy and encourage more energy-efficient infrastructure construction. “We say that enough is enough, this is the limit. We are doing this to change Norwegian electricity policy and create a dynamic where we can take steps that can give us lower and stable electricity prices in Norway, and that we should not give up more power to the EU,” said Vedum. The Labour Party said it is possible to introduce parts of the package without affecting Norway’s sovereignty. Since the discovery of North Sea oil in 1969, Norway’s abundant energy resources have been the cornerstone of the country’s transformation into one of Europe’s wealthiest nations. The Norwegian government has played a central role in managing this wealth. It holds a 67 percent majority stake in Equinor, the national oil company, which generates significant profits during periods of high prices, boosting government dividends.

BAKU, Azerbaijan — The U.S. has played the powerbroker in more than 30 years of global negotiations on fighting climate change — a quest that has swept in an army of diplomats, the world’s biggest companies and every nation on Earth. The first climate summit since Donald Trump’s second White House victory underscored the volatile side of that legacy. In a 14-day conference focused on hundreds of billions of dollars in climate finance, everybody recognized that the incoming U.S. president will refuse to pay any amount the Biden administration agrees to. President Joe Biden’s emissaries helped orchestrate a multinational pledge for “ambitious” carbon-cutting, but they declined to join it. And as the U.S. prepares to recede from global leadership, much of the rest of the world is looking to China to fill the void. Trump’s upcoming presidency is the most important source of the instability on display at the COP29 summit, despite all the Biden administration’s efforts to send signals that America is still on board with the climate cause, said Carlos Fuller, Belize’s permanent representative at the United Nations. “This has become the COP of uncertainty because of that change,” Fuller told POLITICO. “Whatever the U.S. says here — now, it could be with the best intentions — will they follow through? Or will they just say, ‘I can give you everything,’ but then it means nothing?” Trump’s rise and resurgent far-right political movements across Europe were just one of many shadows over the climate talks that ended early Sunday, held in the capital city of oil-rich Azerbaijan. Saudi resistance torpedoed any effort to end the summit with a call to move away from fossil fuels — never mind that a pledge to do just that was the supposedly triumphant achievement of the last climate summit less than a year ago. All the while, scientific evidence mounted that the Earth’s temperatures are rising toward catastrophic levels. “The worst part is the unpredictability,” Brazilian climate chief Ana Toni told POLITICO. “The whole world says that on finance, on policy, we need a roadmap, we need predictability. “And then,” she added, “you have the U.S. going in and out.” Here are key takeaways from this year’s climate talks, and what they bode for what’s next: HOPES FOR MEETING AMBITIOUS TEMPERATURE TARGETS ARE A BUST COP29 began with inauspicious news: The World Meteorological Organization said that this year would eclipse 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming since the pre-industrial age for the first time. The mark, which set a record for the modern era, is in some ways symbolic: Crossing that threshold for one year is less dire than doing so over a 30-year climatological timescale, the point at which catastrophic effects of warming — runaway ice melt, heatwaves and droughts that make parts of the world virtually uninhabitable, and rising seas that swallow low-lying lands and islands — would become irreversible. Still, the milestone showed that the world is most likely heading past 1.5 degrees for the long haul, despite nearly a decade of vows by world leaders to avert it. Even before Trump takes office, the U.S. is already on track to miss Biden’s target of halving its greenhouse gas pollution during this decade, relative to 2005 levels. Trump’s policies, which include vows to leave the 2015 Paris climate agreement, unwind Biden’s climate law, reverse vehicle fuel economy standards and pump more oil and gas, would throttle the pace of emissions reductions and global cooperation. Some nations at COP29 echoed Trump’s approach. Populist Argentine President Javier Milei openly flirted with exiting the Paris pact, while Saudi Arabia blocked attempts to restate last year’s fossil fuel pledge. The U.S., meanwhile, declined to join a coalition including the European Union, Canada, Mexico, the U.K. and Norway that promised during the conference to embrace “ambitious” new climate plans by early next year. U.S. officials did not explain their absence from the effort, even though the Biden administration had helped orchestrate the pledge. Broadly, nations arrived unwilling to move from their “red lines” on efforts to reduce greenhouse gas pollution, said South African Environmental Minister Dion George, who co-chaired that negotiating track. He said the U.S. was more “subdued” when “normally they talk a lot.” Taking hardened positions is “not in anybody’s interest, frankly, but I think that’s a reflection of where we are heading in the world,” he told POLITICO. “What’s required in this type of environment where we are seeing very interesting geopolitical shifts: Leadership is required. And bravery. And I’m not seeing much of it.” SHOW ME THE MONEY (ONCE DEMS ARE BACK IN POWER) The summit’s most contentious issue involved how much money wealthy nations would offer poorer countries to help them cope with climate disasters while moving their economies toward clean energy. Factions arrived poles apart — with some rich countries pushing for $200 billion in climate financing each year for the next decade, even though studies indicate the real need is more than $1 trillion a year. An independent analysis by finance experts said developing nations needed $300 billion per year of public, mostly grant-based funding that charges little or no interest, plus a total of $1 trillion annually provided by other sources such as the private sector. Senior U.S. officials acknowledged that the looming four years of Trump 2.0 and at least two years of full Republican control of Congress moderated how much climate finance the United States could expect to deliver. Instead, they sought to craft a deal that a future, climate-friendly administration could meet. The summit ended with a call for at least $300 billion in annual finance, which representatives of developing countries called insufficient to meet their needs. “The U.S. elections and many other geopolitical events have changed what [the rich countries] could have provided,” said Michai Robertson, lead finance negotiator for a coalition of island states. Trump and congressional Republicans zeroed out climate finance during the president-elect’s first term. Biden spent four years slowly rebuilding those U.S. efforts, hitting $11.4 billion this year and achieving its goal of quadrupling 2016 levels. But the pendulum will almost certainly swing back. While Trump’s transition team did not respond to requests for comment on the finance talks, the president-elect has repeatedly dismissed climate change as a hoax designed to weaken the United States, and he has put Elon Musk and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy in charge of an effort to find trillions of dollars in cuts from government spending. At the same time, the U.S. took part in a contentious meeting among major economic powers early Saturday, after which it joined Australia and European countries in agreeing to set the number at $300 billion a year. One European negotiator criticized the U.S. positioning, saying the Americans “behaved as if they have got more influence than they have when they have only got weeks left in power.” The emergence of Trump in the U.S. and European leaders who complained of fiscal constraints in their capitals led to “a lot of posturing” and blame shifting on finance, said Ruleta Camacho-Thomas, Antigua and Barbuda’s climate ambassador. “There’s a lot of waiting and seeing what the other country will do and what the other group of countries will do: ‘But if these people are not doing this, then I can’t do that,’” she said. “That is global politicking. And this is about survival for us.” As wide as the divide on climate was, Trump’s emergence made it more important to not let COP29 fall to pieces, one European diplomat said. “The developing countries are now saying that it is better to have no agreement than a bad one,” said the diplomat, who was granted anonymity to discuss closed-door talks. “Normally that is true but in this case, with the upcoming presidency in the U.S., it should be crucial for them to have an agreement now.” CHINA IS ASCENDANT The U.S. receding under Trump amid his likely withdrawal from the Paris Agreement make room for China to take over the global climate leadership role. But how China will lead is a major question. Beijing’s massive subsidies for its clean energy technology have reduced costs for developing nations’ green transitions, yet its Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure lending program has saddled those countries with onerous debt. While reports show China’s greenhouse gas pollution may have peaked, it is still by far the world’s top driver of climate change. Accelerating China’s carbon-cutting is key for staying below 1.5 degrees, but it’s still building more coal-fired power plants. China also routinely resists pleas for transparency for its pollution-cutting measures. The same is true on climate finance. “China is a bit complex, but at the same time, we do see leadership from China,” said Harjeet Singh, global engagement director with the environmental group Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative. Trump’s rise will likely give China more of the global market, clean energy analysts have said. Ending Biden’s consumer incentives for buying electric cars, which Republicans have targeted, and subsidies for making batteries, solar panels and wind turbines would curtail burgeoning U.S. efforts to compete in realms that China dominates. China has also led a backlash against efforts by the U.S. and other wealthy nations to impose industrial policies that would blunt China’s stranglehold over key raw materials and technologies for green energy. It has prodded emerging economies to criticize policies such as the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act and and the EU’s carbon border tariff, arguing they make greening their economies more expensive. At COP29, Trump’s impending return to power gave the U.S. less leverage to corral China into making compulsory contributions to the finance goals. China — which has the world’s second-largest economy — hung onto a 1992 U.N. determination that it is poor enough to avoid paying into those efforts, though the final agreement leaves the door open for countries that have since grown wealthier to make commitments if they desire. China, however, sought to disarm criticism when it for the first time offered a figure for the amount of finance it has provided to other nations through its long-touted “South-South Cooperation.” The total is $25 billion since 2016, the Chinese said. Zia Weise contributed to this report.

BAKU, Azerbaijan — China must step up and help lead the fight against climate change, starting with a strong new climate target, the United Nations’ top climate official said Friday. Simon Stiell, executive secretary of U.N. Climate Change, touted China’s investments in clean energy technology as a demonstration of “leading by example.” He then implored the world’s largest emitter to release a strong new plan to cut its planet-warming pollution — known as a nationally determined contribution, or NDC.  “A strong NDC would send an important signal to other countries that stronger targets drive investment, that courageous leadership pays off, that development and sustainability are not at odds — that they are compatible,” said Stiell, speaking on the sidelines of the global climate talks in Baku. His comments, delivered at an event on China’s support for developing nations, come as global climate talks proceed in the shadow of a government transition in the United States, the world’s largest economy and second-biggest emitter.  The U.S. has traditionally taken a key leadership role at these global summits, pushing countries like China to do more to cut their emissions faster.  But President-elect Donald Trump has disputed the science behind global warming and promised to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, the landmark deal that calls on countries to collectively tackle climate change. Trump exited the deal in his first term, but President Joe Biden rejoined in 2021. Stiell noted that this year’s global climate summit and the next, known as COP29 and COP30, will be “critical” for global efforts to limit rising temperatures.  “We will need China’s continued leadership,” Stiell said. Countries at this year’s COP29 summit will need to agree on a new sum for global aid to help developing countries address climate change. Traditional rich country donors, such as the U.S. and European nations, are calling for China and other high-emitting, emerging economies to start chipping in. China has pushed back — arguing that it already contributes significant funding to help developing countries through training, joint research and direct financial support. China has provided nearly $25 billion (177 billion yuan) for climate efforts in the Global South since 2016, according to its officials. Jennifer Morgan, Germany’s climate envoy, on Thursday commended China’s efforts but said: “The question remains as to exactly what money flows are being counted here. The quality of the financing is also still unclear at present … It shows that China has already done a lot and is already doing a lot. But only what is reported transparently will be recognized.” As part of the COP29 negotiations, countries will also be discussing the transparency of their support and the need for it to come in the form of below-market-rate loans or grants rather than high-interest-rate loans. The money is considered necessary to ratchet up the emissions cuts countries are meant to pledge in their next round of climate targets due in February. China is currently pledging to peak carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and zero them out by 2060. U.S. officials, pointing to several analyses, say China needs to commit to slashing at least 30 percent of its emissions by 2035. Zhao Yingmin, head of China’s COP29 delegation and deputy minister at China’s ecology ministry, told POLITICO that “the entire international community should work together to deal with the crisis we are facing.”  Asked if Beijing would deliver a strong NDC and show the leadership Stiell demanded, he said: “China has contributed in addressing climate change. But in the future, China will do our best to contribute more.”  Zhao would not say whether China would consider counting its South-South funding, the money Beijing invests in other developing countries, toward the new goal. The responsibility for the new finance goal “lies with developed countries, not developing countries,” he added. “But developing countries will also help other developing countries according to the South-South cooperation framework.” U.S. diplomats representing the Biden administration in Baku say they’re still pushing to drive climate action forward at the event. Biden is preparing to submit a new NDC to signal what the U.S. could do — even if Trump is unlikely to deliver it. They’ve also called on China — and other countries — to do more. If the U.S. is no longer able to project climate leadership over the next four years, White House national climate adviser Ali Zaidi said earlier this week, “that will come to the detriment of U.S. businesses and U.S. workers, but also to the global dialogue, and we will be, as a collective, looking for other countries to step up to the plate.”

Their worst nightmare is now a burning reality.  Climate diplomats and top-ranking activists on Wednesday struggled to project calm as it became inevitable: Donald Trump is returning to the White House. Trump — a man who has ridiculed climate concerns, promised to rip up U.S. participation in the Paris climate accord and vowed to extract fossil fuels without limit — will, once again, be a major determinant of whether the world slows climate change fast enough. The morning of his victory, however, saw a barrage of statements talking down Trump’s likely impact on plans to slow greenhouse gas emissions, in an attempt to calm nervous clean technology markets and to present the transition as a fait accompli. “Those investing in clean energy are already enjoying huge wins in terms of jobs and wealth, and cheaper, more secure energy. This is because the global energy transition is inevitable and gathering pace, making it among the greatest economic opportunities of our age,” said United Nations climate chief Simon Stiell. The challenge is that the world isn’t moving quickly enough to prevent dangerous global warming, and any slowdown from the world’s second-largest emitter — itself a major driver of the global shift to clean energy — is bound to throw a wrench into global climate efforts. Trump hinted at what was coming in his victory speech early Wednesday morning, touting America’s abundant supplies of “liquid gold.” Addressing Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the environmental lawyer who appears likely to bring his unorthodox views on healthcare to the heart of a Trump administration, Trump said: “Bobby, leave the oil to me.” Others rushed to convince markets that the smart money was still on the clean energy transition, highlighting that advancements in green technology over the past decade had made fossil fuels increasingly uncompetitive. “Standing with oil and gas is the same as falling behind in a fast-moving world,” said Christiana Figueres, who served as the United Nations climate chief between 2010 and 2016. Governments around the world, meanwhile, searched for ways to express confidence. “We’ve heard from the U.N. that [Secretary-General António] Guterres is trying to bring some leaders from the Global South and the Global North together for a statement — just to say that we’re not wobbling,” said a senior European diplomat who negotiates at the UN climate talks.  A second European climate official confirmed that talks were ongoing among governments on issuing a collective response in the days ahead. Both officials were granted anonymity to speak about sensitive diplomacy.  Initial market movements in Europe on Wednesday morning, however, saw a rout in renewable energy companies over concerns that Trump may block them from the U.S. market with tariffs, and that he could eviscerate Biden-era green subsidies. German Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck told reporters on Wednesday that the U.S. and EU were “partners and allies. It’s important on this day to wake up to the fact that we benefit and win when we work together and that we hurt each other when we do not. We will all only stand to lose if there is less cooperation.” IT’S ON EUROPE Trump’s victory throws much of the responsibility for pushing the world forward on climate efforts onto European countries, which are at the forefront of cutting emissions and providing climate finance. In some EU capitals there is recognition that engagement with China, the world’s largest emitter, will now fall to them. “If you look at the three biggest emitters both historically and currently, that’s China, the U.S. and Europe. Those three need to hold each other’s hands. And if one of the three is wobbling or uncertain, the other two need to hold fast,” said the senior European climate negotiator. “We don’t know what Trump’s going to do,” the diplomat added, “so for now, we’re going to keep calm and carry on.” If the 2016 U.S. presidential election caught the world’s climate advocates by surprise, Trump’s second ascent to the White House could hardly have been more dreaded.  In the U.S., green groups and Biden administration officials have been working to secure as much of the domestic agenda and funding for clean energy as possible. Abroad, however, most diplomats and advocates had one plan for this fateful day: hope that Kamala Harris wins. “Hope is not a strategy,” said Robert Orr, dean of the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland and an advisor on climate change to U.N. Secretary-General Guterres. “Stitching together a leadership coalition that can rise to the moment is the name of the game.” TRUMPIAN TIMING  The election results come as some 100 world leaders are expected to attend next week’s COP29 climate talks, the annual U.N. summit that will now serve as a key first test of the rest of the world’s constancy. “I expect countries, including China, to reaffirm their commitment to the Paris Agreement at the start of COP29,” said Li Shuo, director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute. “Unlike 2016, the global community is prepared for this. I am confident we will weather … the immediate impact, but I am worried about the long-term impact of this election.” The COP gatherings bring countries together to pledge greater action to combat climate change and to deliver the money that requires. But many of the world’s most powerful leaders are expected to opt out this year, including U.S. President Joe Biden. Trump, who yanked the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement in his first term, has pledged to do so again — and perhaps even to withdraw from the underlying U.N. convention, a prospect that could upset upcoming negotiations in Azerbaijan over how to drum up trillions of dollars in climate aid over the next decade. “It’s a huge threat,” said Michai Robertson, senior finance adviser to a coalition of small island nations known as AOSIS.  Less action from the world’s biggest economy — and its largest polluter since the industrial era — means everyone else will have to do more to fill the gap. And while the world has changed since Trump’s first term, countries in Europe don’t have the political or fiscal might to fill an America-sized hole in global climate efforts. As to what a Trump presidency would mean for actual global greenhouse gas emissions, scientists said that was too early to predict, as it depends not only on what Trump actually does in office, but also on how other nations and corporations respond. It’s “anyone’s guess what will happen,” said Glen Peters, a senior researcher at the Oslo-based Center for International Climate Research. “And that is perhaps the most concerning thing.” That reality left some activists unable to stomach the sanguine messaging of their peers. Speaking to Germany’s ZEIT newspaper, climate activist Luisa Neubauer shared a bald assessment.  “It’s going to suck,” she said.