Chance for Europe step up on climate may have been granted

Watching from a distance, I felt sure Harris/Walz were ahead. Surfing social media, I was convinced the heartfelt short films produced by Kamala HQ were shifting the dial. Witnessing the shock amongst Republican women after Donald Trump’s vicious attack on Republican critic Liz Cheney – “Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her” – I thought the die was cast.

I was wrong.

In the end, a Grammy Awards-roster of stars including Beyonce, Alicia Keys, Taylor Swift, Stevie Wonder and Bruce Springsteen made no difference. Optimistic Rory the Tory Stewart, tweeted yesterday – “I was completely wrong about Kamala Harris. It is heartbreaking that Trump (below) is now president.” Trump also won the popular vote and Republicans won new seats in the Senate.

Explanations? Maybe American men don’t like being lectured/represented or even addressed by a woman. Especially not a progressive, highly qualified, Black and Asian-American one. Maybe, there was too little time for Harris to connect, thanks to Joe Biden’s refusal to stand aside earlier. Maybe there was too much millionaire supporter razzamatazz prompting the same pushback that was credited with losing Neil Kinnock the UK General Election in 1992 after a star-studded, eve of poll rally.

Maybe, as writer Jonathan Cook puts it; “Kamala lost because if your donor-rigged political and media system limits the choice to two hardline neoliberal candidates, the most hardline, neoliberal candidate will have the edge.”

Certainly, Harris’s stance on Israel/Gaza was a vote-loser in key swing states. A third candidate, the Greens’s Jill Stein, won 22% of the vote in Dearborn, Michigan – home to the country’s largest community of Arab Americans. Harris polled just 28% there against Trump’s 47%.

READ MORE: David Pratt: What I learned from the US election result

Stein stood on a platform of bringing an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza via a full embargo on American arms to Israel. Of course, not all her votes would have switched to Harris if the Democrats had adopted the same stance. Yet in 2020, Biden won this city by a three-to-one margin.

Do the maths.

It’s also true inflation was lower, America involved in fewer world conflicts and the economy felt stronger when Trump was last in charge – but that was pre-Covid, before climate change morphed into an undeniable climate crisis, before Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Hamas’s attack on Israel and Netanyahu’s campaign of genocide in Gaza.

Still, onlookers must concede that many Americans like Trump and bought the abrasive anti-establishment “outsider” status he has so carefully cultivated.

Indeed, a worrying 25% of Scots backed Trump in a recent Norstat poll – a higher percentage than anywhere else in the UK (16%) or western Europe.

That finding, combined with stronger showings for Reform, suggests that without the imminent prospect of change via independence, some Scottish voters will tackle political and economic stagnation by “doing a Brexit” – letting super-sized egos, simplistic slogans and fantasies of easily acquired greatness outweigh the more prosaic attractions of solidarity, long-term vision and common sense.

Voters everywhere have been tempted to do a MAGA, stick two fingers up to democracy and admire a convicted felon acting against the best interests of his fellow citizens.

It’s utterly depressing. But Trump’s victory does do something positive.It’s the shock that gives Europeans a chance – maybe our last chance – to put our own house in order on defence, Gaza, the economy and especially the climate crisis and green transition. Of course, right now Trump’s victory simply shocks, scares and hurts.

For Yessers the result conjures up flashbacks to that terrible sinking feeling on the night of September 18, 2014. And although it isn’t our country and Americans can soon reverse their decision, Trump’s victory brings back those post-indyref feelings of acute disappointment and disorientation. That moment we all realised opinion “outside the bubble” was very different to the prematurely jubilant vibe within.

Indeed, for older folk, Trump’s win also brings back memories of the doomsday scenario in the 90s when Thatcher and John Major kept winning elections, however Scots voted. But that experience of powerlessness sparked the cross-party campaign to reconvene the Scottish Parliament as a limited form of protection.

Twenty-five years on, will Trump’s re-election have the same catalysing effect? We can all see, feel and easily visualise the negative world impact of Trump running America again. Especially in the realm of climate change. “Drill, baby, drill” was just one of the slogans that got him elected and in his trademark rambling victory speech, Trump said: “We have more liquid gold, oil and gas, we have more liquid gold than any country in the world, more than Saudi Arabia. We have more than Russia.” His campaign team has already signalled he will pull out of the Paris Agreement – again.

SO stand by for climate change denying on an epic scale as Trump axes Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which allocated half a trillion dollars for clean tech, hydrogen and renewable energy.

But stand by too for that federal stance to be challenged and maybe offset somewhat by the green policies of individual states like California.

After all, last time around, when Trump refused to attend COP summits, hundreds of American delegates did appear – sent by the individual states. So Trump 2.0 throws a challenge out to Democrat-voting states to hold and deepen their decarbonising course.

And it hands both a challenge and an opportunity to Europeans – since the IRA had given the US a considerable head start over the EU in wind, solar, alternative fuels and electric vehicles. With COP29 starting in Baku, Azerbaijan on Monday, it’s an ideal moment for Europe to catch up and step up. That might just be on the cards.

The terrible loss of life and lack of preparedness in Spain is focusing minds powerfully in Brussels, where Denmark’s climate change minister Dan Jørgensen auditioned this week as the EU’s energy and housing chief – pledging to get Europe off cheap Russian energy.

The job is not yet his, but those who saw him in my recent Denmark film will know his country has stopped issuing oil and gas licences and will end drilling by 2050.

READ MORE: Kamala Harris’s failure in election could have been avoided

There are sceptics about his ability to deliver, but Trump’s victory has just handed a massive challenge and a January deadline to Brussels. Appointing an ambitious politician from a nation with a strong record of decarbonising its economy and society is the only way to respond.

The situation is grim. The US is responsible for more than a 10th of planet-warming pollution, so any shift in climate policy will have global consequences. A hotter planet means more disasters across Europe and reduced momentum for climate action worldwide. So, it’s put up or shut up time for the EU.

Tragically, Scotland cannot contribute directly thanks to England’s own MAGA moment eight years ago. But Trump’s victory is a wake-up call for the planet – and it’s an ill wind that blows no good.