America Is Trying to Bully the World Over Climate Change |
With his attempted annexation of Greenland, U.S. President Donald Trump has exhibited a callousness that shocked Denmark and other U.S. allies. But this kind of threatening and bullying is a mainstay of the Trump administration. A few weeks earlier, the United States undid an international shipping treaty to which most of the world’s nations—friend and foe alike – had already agreed. It did so by using many of the same tactics that it would later use with Greenland—and nailed its colors to the mast as a proponent of might over right.
This brutal version of Trump’s “America First” approach hit the maritime world over greenhouse gas emissions. Shipping accounts for around 3 percent of global emissions, and that share is rising. The sector first realized that it needed to reduce its emissions in the 1990s, and most governments agreed. But the international nature of shipping and the vagaries of flagging—the system under which nations theoretically control ships—made organization difficult. A shipping emissions treaty had been discussed for years. As always in the business world, what executives needed most was clarity so they could order fuel and ships accordingly.
With his attempted annexation of Greenland, U.S. President Donald Trump has exhibited a callousness that shocked Denmark and other U.S. allies. But this kind of threatening and bullying is a mainstay of the Trump administration. A few weeks earlier, the United States undid an international shipping treaty to which most of the world’s nations—friend and foe alike – had already agreed. It did so by using many of the same tactics that it would later use with Greenland—and nailed its colors to the mast as a proponent of might over right.
This brutal version of Trump’s “America First” approach hit the maritime world over greenhouse gas emissions. Shipping accounts for around 3 percent of global emissions, and that share is rising. The sector first realized that it needed to reduce its emissions in the 1990s, and most governments agreed. But the........