In the eye of the storm? What a second Round of Trump-ist Contestation can do to multilateral Climate Action

By Laura von Allwörden

In 2017, the international community was startled by the potential threat the Trump presidency posed to multilateralism and global cooperation. Trump was not shy to contest multiple multilateral agreements and institutions – the NATO had to fight back its significance in Trump’s eyes, the WTO Appellate Body was shattered after Trump’s contestation. Also, global climate action was in danger, when he announced the US would withdraw from the Paris Agreement and through this not only contested the agreement but the underlying norm of Climate Change Action (CCA). After the US contestation of the Paris Agreement in 2017, proponents of climate action feared a spill-over effect against this collective endeavour by other members following the US example and also withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. This was, after all, what happened after the previous US non-ratification of the Kyoto Protocol in 2001 where Australia followed the American example.

Withdrawal by multiple members from the Paris Agreement would have meant a weakening not only of the Agreement itself, but it would have also led to a de-legitimation of the norm. The case of the US contestation and the CCA norm, however, did not end in a destruction of multilateral cooperation to fight climate change but in a (re-)legitimation of the norm and the Paris Agreement.

As shown in this research, several states and non-state actors recommitted to the agreement and further legitimated the norm. As argued, this is due to CCA being established as a legitimate, institutionalized norm within a diverse community in the global climate regime, especially by the effort of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The UNFCCC, the organization that facilitates the Paris Agreement, had helped strengthening the norm, especially by orchestrating non-state actors in the climate regime thereby institutionalizing the norm within a diverse community of actors. Also, the recommitment to the Paris Agreement was fostered by the opposition of UNFCCC member states and non-state actors to Trump’s broader anti-multilateralism agenda. His populist contestation therefore triggered a further legitimation of the norm and the Paris Agreement. A positive outcome of contestation— that by association as practice of refusal or objection— is more likely to have weakening effects. But the international community stood behind the Paris Agreement, CCA and global, multilateral cooperation.

Now, seven years later, the international community is asked to do just that, in order for multilateralism to survive another Trump presidency. In light of Trump potentially being re-elected for 2025, taking the lessons from 2017 forward, is even more urgent and important. ‘Predicting’ a ‘bloodbath’ in the US if he does not get elected, what will be the alternative for the rest of the world if Trump does? In a time of multiple scenes of crisis and of rising populism, despotism and insecurities, Trump will come back to undo what the Biden presidency has just rebuilt. Trump will go back to contesting what multilateralism can do for the world, and he will contribute to driving wedges between people – in politics and in society, in and outside the US. Although, his attention will most likely have moved to the war-related crises in Ukraine as well as in Gaza, and moved away from the Covid-crisis and the climate-crisis (which may save the Paris Agreement for now) he is not there to save multilateralism. What to do? The international community needs to stand together behind their multilateral institutions and norms, and include all levels of society to back these against Trump-ist contestation. In security, global trade, human rights, and climate change. Because one thing is for sure, although another four years of Trump might not kill multilateralism, not cooperating and standing together on fighting the existential threat of climate change, does.

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Article Details
When contestation legitimizes: the norm of climate change action and the US contesting the Paris Agreement.
Laura von Allwörden
First published January 19, 2024 Research article
DOI: 10.1177/00471178231222874
International Relations

About the Author

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Laura von Allwörden is a researcher and lecturer at the chair of International Relations at the Christian-Albrechts-University Kiel, Germany. Prior she was a doctoral researcher in the ERC NestIOr research project ‘Who gets to live forever? Toward an Institutional Theory on the Decline and Death of International Organisations’ at Maastricht University, The Netherlands. Her research focuses on international organization, norms and related practices in the global climate regime as well as contestation and legitimation in global governance.