RALLY’s Hot Take: No President? No Problem.
The last few weeks have marked yet another low for Trump’s America: While (literally) the entire world was gathered in Bonn, Germany to negotiate solutions to our collective climate crisis, America sat alone on the sidelines like a petulant kid benched out of the game. Thank you very much, Mr. President. Then even as South Dakota was cleaning up a 210,000 Keystone Pipeline oil spill, the Nebraska regulators cleared the way for an expansion of the pipeline. Yikes.
While we were setting the stage for future oil spills and the environmental catastrophe that goes with it, representatives of 192 nations were hard at work at the 23rd session of Conference of Parties to the United Nations’ Framework Convention on Climate Change (UN COP23.) They were talking about how to operationalize the landmark agreement reached last year in Paris to reduce greenhouse gases, and hashing out details like the financial obligations of large mega-polluting nations, climate change-fueled disaster response, and more. Since Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris pact, these critical conversations happened without us. Yikes again.
This moment feels like an utter failure for us — an abdication of a chance for leadership. And it is. But, digging a little deeper reveals some reasons for hope and pride, and good lessons for advocacy in these complex times.
Here’s the RALLY Hot Take:
1. No president? No problem. Maybe the president wasn’t interested in COP23 talks, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t have some serious representation there anyway. California Governor Jerry Brown attended COP23 to conduct side negotiations including a discussion with the European Union to link up with California’s “cap and trade” marketplace for carbon-polluters. Governor Brown also pointed to the climate summit planned for San Francisco next year as an opportunity to create a new agreement for “sub-national states and regions and organizations;” and to continue California’s leadership for clean energy and climate resilience. State Senator Ricardo Lara is also in Bonn, touting California’s fuel efficiency standards and other policies. As the world’s fifth largest economy, California had every reason to snub its nose at the White House and participate in the conversation at Bonn. Just because the federal government refuses to do the moral thing doesn’t mean powerful states can’t join in its stead.
2. Global issue; local consequences. Even as the Trump administration tries to isolate the US, reality remains: climate change is a global issue with some very real local impacts. Leave the Tweeter-in-Chief to his gaslighting and attempts to distract from the facts. We need to stick to telling the stories that keep our friends, neighbors, and leaders engaged on finding solutions. The future of our globe might be local.
3. We are already winning — with or without climate deniers. No one wants to get involved in a cause that seems hopeless, so let’s remember that in so many ways, we are winning. That’s an important fact to holler from the rooftops. For example, RALLY client Earthjustice’s Right to Zero campaign recently helped secure commitments from the city and county of Los Angeles for a zero-emissions electric bus fleet by 2030. Back in March, renewable energy sources like solar panels and wind farms fed 67.2 percent of California’s electricity grid, setting a record. The world is still looking to us for climate leadership, and we must continue to step up.
Donald Trump might be useless in this fight against climate change, but he isn’t going to stop us from getting the job done anyway. We will keep negotiating and keep running campaigns for a cleaner, greener America. Then maybe one day soon Trump will tweet out asking for all of us to thank him for saving our planet. Sure, dude. Sure.
Rachele Huennekens is a Senior Account Executive at RALLY, an issue-driven communications firm that takes on sticky political and social problems and finds ways to push them forward.
