Prophet, spoiler, or free rider?: The United States and climate change

In his first term, withdrawing from the Paris Agreement was President Trump's main aim. In his second, he has larger ambitions – not simply to withdraw from collective climate action, but to prevent it; not only to favour fossil fuels and oppose clean technologies at home, but to promote these objectives abroad.

We identify three roles the US could play in seeking to derail global climate action:

• a ‘prophet’ – demonstrating primarily through domestic action why other countries should abandon climate action
• a ‘spoiler’ – acting to wreck others’ efforts to tackle climate change
• a ‘free rider’ – benefitting from the efforts of others to maintain a stable climate while maximising returns from fossil fuels and externalising costs.

This paper seeks to give policymakers a framework to consider the likely real-world effect of the Trump administration, and to indicate how they might best respond in order to achieve their own objectives in this new geopolitical era.