What Donald Trump’s dramatic US trade war means for global climate action

by bpckle | Apr 3, 2025 | Media

US President Donald Trump’s new trade war will not only send shockwaves through the global economy – it also upsets efforts to tackle the urgent issue of climate change.

Trump has announced a minimum 10% tariff to be slapped on all exports to the United States. A 34% duty applies to imports from China and a 20% rate to products from the European Union. Australia has been hit with the minimum 10% tariff.

The move has prompted fears of a global economic slowdown. This might seem like a positive for the climate, because greenhouse gas emissions are closely tied to economic growth.

However, in the long term, the trade war is bad news for global efforts to cut emissions. It is likely to lead to more energy-intensive goods produced in the US, and dampen international investment in renewable energy projects.

How does global trade affect emissions?

Traditionally, growth in the global economy leads to greater emissions from sources such as energy use in both manufacturing and transport. Conversely, emissions tend to fall in periods of economic decline.

Trade tensions damage the global economy. This was borne out in the tariff war between the US and China, the world’s two largest economies, in 2018 and 2019.

Trump, in his first presidential term, imposed tariffs on billions of dollars worth of imports from China. In response, China introduced or increased tariffs on thousands of items from the US.

As a result, the International Monetary Fund estimated global gross domestic product (GDP) would fall by 0.8% in 2020. The extent of its true impact on GDP is difficult to determine due to the onset of COVID in the same year.

However, Trump’s tariff war is far broader this time around, and we can expect broadscale damage to global GDP.

In the short-term, any decline is likely to have a positive impact on emissions reduction. We saw this effect during the COVID-19 pandemic, when global production and trade fell.

But unfortunately, this effect won’t last forever.

Domestic production isn’t always a good thing

Every country consumes goods. And according to Trump’s trade plan, which aims to revive the US manufacturing base, the goods his nation requires will be produced domestically rather than being imported.

Unfortunately, this US production is likely to be inefficient in many cases. A central tenet of global trade is that nations focus on making goods where they have a competitive advantage – in other words, where they can manufacture the item more cheaply than other nations can. That includes making them using less energy, or creating fewer carbon emissions.

If the US insists on manufacturing everything it needs domestically, we can expect many of those goods to be more emissions-intensive than if they were imported.

Renewable energy slowdown?

Globally, investment in renewable energy has been growing. The US trade war jeopardises this growth.

Renewable energy spending is, in many cases, a long-term investment which may not produce an immediate economic reward. The logic is obvious: if we don’t invest in reducing emissions now, the economic costs in the future will be far worse.

However, the US tariffs create a new political imperative. Already, there are fears it may trigger a global economic recession and increase living costs around the world.

National governments are likely to become focused on protecting their own populace from these financial pressures. Business and industry will also become nervous about global economic conditions.

And the result? Both governments and the private sector may shy away from investments in renewable energy and other clean technologies, in favour of more immediate financial concerns.

The COVID experience provides a cautionary tale. The unstable economic outlook and higher interest rates meant banks were more cautious about financing some renewable energy projects.

And according to the International Energy Agency, small to medium-sized businesses became more reluctant to invest in renewable energy applications such as heat pumps and solar panels.

What’s more, the slowing in global trade during the pandemic meant the supply of components and materials vital to the energy transition was disrupted.

There are fears this disruption may be repeated following the US tariff move. For example, the duty on solar products from China to the US is expected to rise to 60%, just as demand for solar energy increases from US data centres and artificial intelligence use.

Few nations can afford to impose retaliatory tariffs on US imports.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, for example, said Australia would not follow suit, adding the move would be “a race to the bottom that leads to higher prices and slower growth”.

China, however, can be expected to return fire. Already it has halted imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the US for 40 days – a move attributed to trade tensions.

This may seem like good news for emissions reduction. However, China, like all other nations, needs energy. With less gas from the US, it may resort to burning more coal – which generates more CO? when burnt than gas.

An uncertain time

Free global trade has worldwide benefits. It helps reduce poverty and stimulates innovation and technology. It can improve democracy and individual freedoms.

And, with the right safeguards in place, global trade can help drive the clean energy transition. Global trade improves efficiency and innovation and technology. This is likely to benefit innovation in clean energy and energy efficiency.

Trump’s tariff war weakens global trade, and will slow the world’s progress towards decarbonisation. It is a most uncertain time – both for the world’s economy, and its climate.

Rakesh Gupta does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Invisible losses: thousands of plant species are missing from places they could thrive – and humans are the reason

by bpckle | Apr 3, 2025 | Media

If you go walking in the wild, you might expect that what you’re seeing is natural. All around you are trees, shrubs and grasses growing in their natural habitat.

But there’s something here that doesn’t add up. Across the world, there are large areas of habitat which would suit native plant species just fine. But very often, they’re simply absent.

Our new research gauges the scale of this problem, known as “dark diversity”. Our international team of 200 scientists examined plant species in thousands of sites worldwide.

What we found was startling. In regions heavily affected by our activities, only about 20% of native plant species able to live there were actually present. But even in areas with very little human interference, ecosystems only contained about 33% of viable plant species.

Why so few species in wilder areas? Our impact. Pollution can spread far from the original source, while conversion of habitat to farms, logging and human-caused fires have ripple effects too.

Conspicuous by their absence

Our activities have become a planet-shaping force, from changing the climate through our emissions to farming 44% of all habitable land. As our footprint has expanded, other species have been pushed to extinction. The rates of species loss are unprecedented in recorded history.

When we think about biodiversity loss, we might think of a once-common animal species losing numbers and range as farms, cities and feral predators expand. But we are also losing species from within protected areas and national parks.

To date, the accelerating loss of species has been largely observed at large scale, such as states or even whole countries. Almost 600 plant species have gone extinct since 1750 – and this is likely a major underestimate. Extinction hotspots include Hawaii (79 species) and South Africa’s unique fynbos scrublands (37 species).

But tracking the fate of our species has been difficult to do at a local scale, such as within a national park or nature reserve.

Similarly, when scientists do traditional biodiversity surveys, we count the species previously recorded in an area and look for changes. But we haven’t tended to consider the species that could grow there – but don’t.

What did we do?

To get a better gauge of biodiversity losses at smaller scale, we worked alongside scientists from the international research network DarkDivNet to examine almost 5,500 sites across 119 regions worldwide. This huge body of fieldwork took years and required navigating global challenges such as COVID-19 and political and economic instability.

At each 100 square metre site, our team sampled all plant species present against the species found in the surrounding region. We defined regions as areas of approximately 300 square kilometres with similar environmental conditions.

Just because a species can grow somewhere doesn’t mean it would. To make sure we were recording which species were genuinely missing, we looked at how often each absent species was found growing alongside the species growing at our chosen sites at other sampled sites in the region. This helped us detect species well-suited to a habitat but missing from it.

We then cross-matched data on these missing species against how big the local human impact was by using the Human Footprint Index, which measures population density, land use and infrastructure.

Of the eight components of this index, six had a clear influence on how many plant species were missing: human population density, electric infrastructure, railways, roads, built environments and croplands. Another component, navigable waterways, did not have a clear influence.

Interestingly, the final component – pastures kept by graziers – was not linked to fewer plant species. This could be because semi-natural grasslands are used as pasture in areas such as Central Asia, Africa’s Sahel region and Argentina. Here, long-term moderate human influence can actually maintain highly diverse and well-functioning ecosystems through practices such as grazing livestock, cultural burning and hay making.

Overall, though, the link between greater human presence and fewer plant species was very clear. Seemingly pristine ecosystems hundreds of kilometres from direct disturbance had been affected.

These effects can come from many causes. For instance, poaching and logging often take place far from human settlements. Poaching an animal species might mean a plant species loses a key pollinator or way to disperse its seeds in the animal’s dung. Over time, disruptions to the web of relationships in the natural world can erode ecosystems and result in fewer plant species. Poachers and illegal loggers also cut “ghost roads” into pristine areas.

Other causes include fires started by humans, which can threaten national parks and other safe havens. Pollution can travel and settle hundreds of kilometres from its source, affecting ecosystems.

Our far-reaching influence can also hinder the return of plant species, even in protected areas. As humans expand their activities, they often carve up natural areas into fragments cut off from each other. This can isolate plant populations. Similarly, the loss of seed-spreading animals can stop plants from recolonising former habitat.

What does this mean?

Biodiversity loss is not just about species going extinct. It’s about ecosystems quietly losing their richness, resilience and functions.

Protecting land is not enough. The damage we can do can reach deep into conservation areas.

Was there good news? Yes. In regions where at least a third of the landscape had minimal human disturbance, there was less of this hidden biodiversity loss.

As we work to conserve nature, our work points to a need not just to preserve what’s left but to bring back what’s missing. Now we know what species are missing in an area but still present regionally, we can begin that work.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.