The Guardian view on the LA fires: Donald Trump’s denial and division fuel climate inaction
Editorial
Events in
California reveal how political obstruction is deepening a climate crisis that
needs urgent action to prevent it becoming an irreversible disaster
Fri 10 Jan
2025 18.06 GMT
The
wildfires ravaging Los Angeles have killed at least 10 people, displaced
180,000 and scorched about 40 square miles – an inferno driven by fierce winds
and severe drought in what should be California’s wet season. It is a sobering
reminder that the climate crisis is driving wildfires to become more frequent,
intense and destructive – leaving ruined lives, homes and livelihoods in their
wake. The US president Joe Biden responded by mobilising federal aid. By
contrast the president-elect, Donald Trump, a convicted felon who was
criminally sentenced on Friday, used the disaster to spread disinformation and
stoke political division.
The climate
crisis knows no national borders. Deadly floods in Spain, Hawaii’s fires and
east Africa’s devastating drought show nowhere is safe from its effects.
Countries must work toward the global common interest and beyond their narrow
national interests. The scale of the climate emergency is such that there is a
case to view all crises through a green lens. Instead Mr Trump’s denialism
works to foment distrust about the science. He’s not just aiming to delay the
onset of truth. He wants to demolish it. It’s a familiar playbook: the fossil
fuel industry knows the reality of the climate emergency but chooses profit
over responsibility, effectively deceiving the public while the planet burns.
The perils
of weaponising doubt should be painfully clear in the week when scientists said
2024 was the first year to pass the symbolic 1.5C warming threshold, as well as
the world’s hottest on record. Mr Trump’s politicisation of climate denial has
supercharged it, turning scepticism into a badge of identity. When denial
becomes ideological, facts turn irrelevant. That makes concerted climate action
much harder to achieve.
Mr Trump’s
return to power won’t halt America’s path to decarbonisation, but it will slow
it disastrously. An analysis by Carbon Brief estimated last August that his
return could add 4bn tonnes of US carbon emissions by 2030 compared to Democrat
plans – inflicting $900bn in global climate damage. To grasp its scale, the
emissions surge would equal the combined annual output of the EU and Japan or
the emissions of the world’s 140 lowest-emitting countries. Confronting the
climate emergency demands more than facts; it requires dismantling the
political machinery that breeds denialism. The link between the current model
of economic growth and the depth of environmental collapse is undeniable. Yet
in the face of the overwhelming evidence, too many on the political right cling
to denial or place blind faith in the free market.
This is an
age of “hyper agency” – where billionaires, rogue states and corporations wield
almost unchecked power, fuelling climate chaos and global instability. The
mechanisms meant to hold power to account are being dismantled with ruinous
consequences. Without urgent action, the next disaster won’t be a warning. It
will be irreversible. While not much can be expected from Mr Trump, the
European “green deal” is too small to plug this year’s projected shortfall in
private investment, let alone meet EU commitments under the Paris climate
agreement. Climate denialism ought to be confronted with bold policies;
business must be held accountable for its role in this crisis; and voters need
to see through the rightwing populist parties who prioritise profit over the
planet. The next catastrophe isn’t a distant threat, it’s already in motion.
Only immediate and determined action can stop global heating from becoming
humanity’s undoing.
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