The transformation of the issue of climate change into an issue of partisan politics, not a real threat to the planet, is one of the dangers that American researcher Alice Hill highlights for US diplomacy as a result of the so-called midterms. The midterm legislative elections, which will renew the House and part of the Senate, are scheduled for the 8th.
“Republicans don’t see the issue as urgently as Democrats do,” he tells Sheet senior researcher at the US Council on Foreign Relations and responsible for national disaster resilience policy during the administration of Democrat Barack Obama, between 2015 and 2016.
The world’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases behind China, the US has recently seen a significant victory for the Joe Biden administration in the area. In August, the Senate approved the largest federal investment in climate crisis mitigation on record, pumping $430 billion into energy and climate programs and forecasting to cut carbon emissions to a level 40% below the 2005 level by the end of the year. end of the decade.
It is for actions like these that Hill sees the risk of a Conservative victory in the Legislature resulting in negative consequences for the president’s ambitions – which are even more on paper. According to her, a Republican majority in the House would make it possible to open investigations and could make it difficult to execute the necessary budget for Biden’s proposals.
In the Senate, the result would not reverse the so-called Inflation Reduction Law — a somewhat euphemistic title for the climate package, as it also includes measures to combat rising prices. “But it would slow down the progress of part of the ambitions for the sector that the president indicated he had”, says she, who on Monday (24) participated by videoconference in a debate organized by Cebri (Brazilian Center for International Relations) in partnership with headquarters of the American consulate in Rio de Janeiro.
Hill also draws attention to the fact that midterms include municipal, state and council elections whose actions also impact the goal of reducing emissions over the next ten years.
So, in addition to the internal consequences, a change in Congressional compass could undermine the message that the Democrat intends to convey to the international community, that the US “is back” to lead the negotiations on the issue – the midterms occur at the same time as the COP 27.
The point is that Washington has behaved erratically in recent years – while Obama and now Biden say they put the environmental agenda at the center of the political agenda, Donald Trump was an “ecosceptic” and even pulled the country out of the Paris Agreement. A further change in position would therefore be “addition to the rhetoric that the US is not going to move forward firmly.”
Hill also says that the result of the elections could impact the collaboration between the US and Brazil in the climate field — as much as the eventual re-election of Jair Bolsonaro (PL), whose government was marked by records of deforestation and the dismantling of inspection bodies, taking away the Brazil’s leadership in environmental diplomacy.
“It all depends on both sides of the equation: whether Bolsonaro will be seen as a credible partner in tackling these issues, in particular Amazon deforestation; and whether the US Congress will support the president’s efforts to focus more on climate issues, including Brazil.” she says. “In both contexts, there is the question of who will be in the lead.”
Despite a meeting at the Summit of the Americas, the Brazilian leader maintained a distant relationship with Biden and last year he even cited the American’s “obsession with the environmental issue” as an obstacle to relations between Brasilia and Washington.
Hill says, however, that opportunities for collaboration and strengthening of bilateral efforts in the area are not lacking — from establishing partnerships to fight conservation crimes to sharing the clean fuel research underway in the US today. “Both countries play a key role in combating climate change; and both are among the top ten emitters.”
For the researcher, this type of collaboration will be even more necessary as extreme weather events become more recurrent – ​​as was the case with Covid.
She, who wrote a book on fighting climate change after the pandemic, says that this is just one of the similarities in the way of combating the two phenomena, a list that also includes investment in preventive actions, leaders who make decisions based on scientific data. and special attention to the most vulnerable segments of the population.
“None of these threats respect the boundaries of jurisdiction that humans have developed over the last millennium. They bypass them, and we need to coordinate across those borders so that everyone is properly protected.”
Alice Hill, 66
She served as a special assistant to the Barack Obama administration (2009-2017) and was the senior director for resilience policies at the US National Security Council. In 2009, she formulated the country’s Department of Homeland Security’s first climate adaptation plan.
With a wealth of experience honed over 4+ years in journalism, I bring a seasoned voice to the world of news. Currently, I work as a freelance writer and editor, always seeking new opportunities to tell compelling stories in the field of world news.
