Donald Trump’s re-election to the White House is a major setback for climate action but ultimately it’s the US that could end up losing out, as the rest of the world will move forward without it.

The US is the world’s biggest economy and its second biggest emitter. Positive US engagement on climate has been crucial to landmark leaps forward, like getting the Paris agreement over the line, and just last year committing to transitioning away from fossil fuels.

The US missing in action in the latter half of this critical decade for climate action is nobody’s idea of a good outcome.

President-elect Trump has promised to leave the Paris agreement and reports have emerged that he could be thinking of pulling out of the underlying United Nations framework treaty on climate change. But we’ve been here before and the truth is that a second Trump presidency can’t stop climate action, just like his denial of human-induced climate change won’t spare the US from its impacts.

The energy transition is now well under way. The economics of renewable technologies are so attractive that they have become an energy juggernaut. Since the Paris agreement was signed in 2015, global investment in clean energy has increased by 60%.

Nearly........

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