The global climate negotiation process was initiated in Brazil with the Rio Earth Summit in the hopeful 1990s. “Climate denialism is back at a point we thought we’d moved on from,” Fitzpatrick says. NDCs are climate action plans that set out how each country will reduce its own greenhouse gas emissions in the immediate future and longer term. The country’s appetite for climate action has wavered in the past but in his second term Donald Trump has turned reservation into disdain. It is clear that the absence from global climate negotiations of the world’s biggest economy and second-largest emitter diminishes the process.
