FROM PAGE B4

imports, which raise the risk of price fluctuations and give geopolitical leverage to possible adversaries.

Add in power plants’ unreliability in some countries, and the impetus to transition quickly is big: Pakistan, for example, has in just 18 months added enough solar panels to generate a third of its electricity. On top of that, the top trading partner for around 150 countries is China, which is at the forefront of developing everything from electric vehicles to solar panels to high-voltage cables for power grids.

Washington, though, is pushing back – and not just with rhetoric. Trump has used his tariff war to push partners including the European Union, Vietnam and Japan to include increased purchases of US liquefied natural gas in their new trade agreements. And in October his administration succeeded in delaying by a year a vote on the International Maritime Organization’s net-zero framework for shipping, by threatening to impose further levies on states and revoke individuals’ US visas if they supported the plan.

Such tactics will, at least, be harder to pull off in person at COP30 and beyond. That’s because the US might not even send a delegation to Belém - and will only be able to attend future confabs as an observer because of Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris Agreement, for the second time.