The writer is chief executive of the European Climate Foundation and was France’s special representative for COP21
In the global fight against climate change, Donald Trump’s election victory is undoubtedly a challenging setback. The next four years are critical for limiting global warming to 1.5C — every 10th of a degree counts. Trump’s promise to take the US — one of the world’s largest current and historic emitters — out of the Paris Agreement would undoubtedly be damaging and may embolden those countries and vested interests still clinging to the fossil fuel era.
Yet no amount of misinformation can hide the fact that the climate crisis is deepening. Heatwaves, hurricanes and floods are leaving a devastating trail of lives lost and economies disrupted. In 2023 alone, natural disasters caused a record $380bn in economic damage. The cost of inaction is huge, and close to uninsurable.