A Trump presidency looks grim for cities, but there are grains of hope

The re-election of Donald #Trump as President of the United States has been the ballot that has been heard around the world, and perhaps nowhere more than in #cities trying to adapt to #climate change and mitigate its effects.

While urban development policy was hardly in either party's manifestos, given that more half the world's population live in cities — rising to around seven out of 10 people by 2050 — any dramatic policy changes under a Trump administration will be felt on the ground.

The most immediate impacts will, of course, be on cities in the US as changes to laws and budget funding will affect them directly. But many of his likely policy changes will have global impacts.

The most obvious impacts will come from a series of likely changes to US policies and attitudes on climate change. A cornerstone of the US administration was the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) that poured millions of dollars of public money into clean energy investment.

Turning off that tap will limit the commercial development of innovations related to electric vehicles and energy generation that would have benefited cities proportionately more because of their higher energy use.

Another negative step will be if Trump again withdraws the US from the Paris climate agreement. He cannot do that until he takes on the presidency in late January but his pre-election pledge to do that will hang over the COP29 heads of state climate conference starting on 11 November in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Feeding into that decision is his claim that climate change is “one of the great scams of all time” while pledging to cancel spending on clean energy, abolish “insane” incentives for Americans to drive electric cars, scrap various environmental rules and has repeatedly heralded a “drill, baby, drill” era of new oil and gas.

Cloud’s silver lining

The leaders of the C40 group of the world’s largest cities unsurprisingly gave Trump’s election a sombre welcome, conceding that progress was not inevitable while insisting that asserting progressive values was more important than ever. “It’s deeply disappointing to see a climate crisis denier back in the White House. But mayors have always led on climate, and Donald Trump’s election doesn’t change that,” says C40 Cities Executive Director, Mark Watts.

Therein lies the hope: Watts is right in that mayors of cities kept the green transition alive in their jurisdictions during the first Trump presidency and will do so from Monday 20 January next year —  Inauguration Day. Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, the mayor of Freetown, Sierra Leone and C40 Co-Chair, said cities are already tackling a climate crisis that is a “lived reality”.

It threatens the lives and livelihoods of millions of people across the Global South through fires, floods, food shortages and mass migration. “Cities are vital to tackling this crisis and C40 mayors will continue to do so,” she says.

The repeal of IRA may not go smoothly and may open the door to a reverse of the investment flow out of Europe. On the first point, the act is a complicated piece of legislation that will take time to unpick. It is estimated to have funded almost 650 projects, which have helped create more than 334,000 new jobs. Much of this money has been avidly take up by Republican politicians in congressional districts in Michigan, Texas, Georgia, California, and South Carolina who might put pressure on the White House not to turn off the tap.

If it is reversed, then it will cancel an incentive for climate innovators and investors to move investment to the US and away from Europe, which is also having a tough time competing against China. Its repeal could be a boon for European countries and companies and for Brussels as it sees the opportunity to attract back disgruntled investors. Just as Trump’s possible withdrawal of support for Ukraine is sharpening minds in the European defence sphere, so the IRA will do the same for the energy bureaucrats.

And for a bit of light relief, there are president-elect Trump’s policies on “freedom cities”. Last year he raised the idea of building up to 10 futuristic cities on federal land around the size of Washington DC, to provide houses and jobs for young aspirant homebuyers.

Of course, whether they would be positive or negative for the climate would have to be seen. But one academic analysis has warned that it is likely to “materially and symbolically manifest the reactionary and fascist thrusts of the Trumpian movement”, by excluding categories of people he sees as undesirable.

Trump’s second term will be hostile to “others” whether that is advocates for action on climate change or cities in the Global South whose citizens will need to migrate to escape the impacts of the emergency. The political climate is horrible but perhaps out of adversity will rise some positive and determined steps to rebut that.