President Trump has expressed little interest in fighting climate change. One of his key cabinet officials has even sought to evaluate whether humanity benefits from a warming climate, in a bid to undermine environmental rules.
Yet even as he works to accelerate oil and gas production, Mr. Trump’s economic approach may inadvertently reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as consumption slows in response to a global trade war.
Any reprieve for the planet, however, would be brief. Over the longer term, tanking the economy with tit-for-tat tariffs is likely to impede progress, because of how much clean energy deployment depends on overseas supply chains and because voters are less likely to support climate policy when they’re financially stressed.
Carbon emissions, largely a byproduct of going places and making things, have always been tethered to economic growth. Forecasters increasingly anticipate that Mr. Trump’s aggressive use of tariffs could tip the economy into recession as companies and consumers cut spending in the face of higher prices for imported goods.
“If we’re talking about a traditional recession, people fly less, they buy less stuff, there’s less investment in capital goods,” said Alex Heil, a senior economist at the Conference Board, who focuses on energy and climate. “And just a slowdown in economic activity is likely to slow down carbon emissions.”
That is what happened in the last two recessions. Global carbon emissions dipped slightly, before resuming their upward march. (Emissions in the United States continued to decline after 2008 as cheap natural gas displaced coal, and it’s possible that a similar peak is nearing for the rest of the world.)
There are already signs of this happening: Airlines are forecasting lower traffic, and fewer homes are being built. After the pre-tariff panic buying is done, consumer-oriented companies are expecting lower sales as customers pare their shopping lists. The end of the de minimis exemption, which allowed shipments worth up to $800 to enter the country tariff-free, may result in many fewer flimsy but trendy clothing items being flown across the ocean.
There’s a certain irony here: U.S. environmentalists have long sought to impose some kind of tax on carbon, in order to discourage dirty products and encourage cleaner ones. Tariffs discourage people from buying foreign products, and plenty of those are also carbon intensive. So although a carbon tax would lower emissions more directly — Europe is even planning a new tariff system targeted at carbon intensive goods — broad tariffs are better than nothing, from a climate perspective.
It’s also true that globalization fueled the explosion of climate-warming gases by making it possible for the citizens of wealthier countries to fill their large houses with toys, furniture and cars at a low cost. As environmental regulations tightened in Europe and the United States, more polluting factories moved to developing countries with looser rules.
But it’s not clear that a trade war will run that process in reverse, because of the thicket of countervailing effects it creates. For one thing, even as the United States imposes tariffs, shipments of goods may simply be redirected, rather than falling overall.
“The question is, are we really looking at substantially reduced cross border trade, or are we just looking at different cross border trade?” said Ethan Zindler, chief policy analyst at BloombergNEF. “If you take trade route A versus trade route B, it might have higher emissions. So it’s very hard to know.”
Even if international shipping declined, and tariffs redirected consumption toward domestic goods, that wouldn’t necessarily help. Most emissions associated with global freight actually come in the last-mile delivery via truck from ports of entry to warehouses and retailers.
Moreover, if the world did return to an age in which countries bought more within their own borders — and that’s a big “if” — building new factories that may not operate as efficiently as China’s enormous industrial zones could end up increasing the carbon required to produce a sofa or a pair of shoes.
The bigger factor for emissions in the medium term would be how trade restrictions and an economic downturn would affect new sources of electricity.
Recessions always bring down gas prices; concerns about the Trump administration’s economic policy have already done so. Tariffs on steel and aluminum are also making it more expensive to get oil rigs up and running, which has slowed down drilling.
But tariffs cut both ways for energy, and renewable sources may suffer even more. Solar arrays, wind farms, and electric vehicles are currently built with goods produced in other countries, including batteries and turbines, most of which are now subjected to tariffs of at least 10 percent. (For solar panels, the duties are far higher.) Retaliatory measures, such as China’s export controls on rare earth minerals needed in clean energy technologies, will magnify the effect.
The Biden administration had worked to build up domestic sources of solar panels, batteries and other parts needed to build renewable energy, supported with billions of dollars in subsidies. They also used tariffs to protect some of those industries, and planned for more when they were up and running. But they’re currently not producing nearly enough to supply domestic demand.
“Where we are in the process now is we’re building the factories, now we need the equipment to put in the factories, and that takes a lot of steel,” said Eric Van Nostrand, who ran economic policy at the Treasury Department under President Joseph R. Biden. Tariffs on steel make that harder, and investment is already wilting in the face of high interest rates and the possibility that Congress will curtail the clean energy tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act.
Trade barriers also make it more difficult to adapt when climate-related disasters hit. When a drought wipes out a wheat or soybean crop, shifting to imports without having to pay exorbitant taxes can cushion the blow. And rebuilding after a hurricane or a wildfire is much more costly without imported lumber, cement and appliances.
And economic downturns are hard on average consumers, who lose jobs and have their hours cut. Even if they might do fewer loads of laundry to save on their energy bills, investing in an electric vehicle or a heat pump for their house becomes more difficult (and will be even more so if Congress repeals Biden-era subsidies for those items).
“Recessions are not times when people decide to spend a lot of money to upgrade their washing machines to a more energy efficient one,” said Brian Prest, a fellow at Resources for the Future, an energy-focused think tank. Holding back the upgrade cycle can keep emissions falling as much as they might have in a healthy economy.
But the more important implications of a trade war and ensuing recession would kick in over the longer term, and none of them are good for the climate.
First, the path of decarbonization depends a lot on how quickly technology progresses. As trade barriers rise, exporting to other countries becomes more difficult. That shrinks the market available for entrepreneurs, reducing the incentive to take risks and invest.
Second, even if Americans elect a more climate-friendly president and Congress in the coming years, recessions typically don’t lend themselves to ambitious environmental policy. Relieving immediate financial pain tends to take priority, said Jonas Meckling, a climate fellow at Harvard Business School.
“If this results in a contraction of economic growth, then we know that climate won’t be a top agenda item for voters, and everything will focus much more on just stimulating the economy,” Dr. Meckling said. It’s already happening up north: Faced with rising joblessness and high costs, Canada has backed off on its own consumer carbon tax.
That’s also true on an international level. Economic insecurity focuses nations inward, when dealing with climate change requires international cooperation. Festering global conflicts are also pushing leaders to focus their resources on building up their militaries, leaving less money to support a transition to low-carbon energy, industrial processes and agriculture.
That’s why climate economists take little solace in even the carbon silver lining of any impending recession.
“Emissions may drop a bit because of a bit less economic activity,” said Brian Copeland, an economics professor at the University of British Columbia. “But I think it just makes the long run transition to a less carbon intensive society harder.”