With COP30 climate negotiations coming up later this year in Belém, Brazil, “this will hamstring international climate cooperation at the worst possible time,” one official told Politico. It’s “just strategically fucking dumb when it comes to China,” they added, creating a leadership vacuum that China could fill (as they’ve consistently said they would).

But that doesn’t mean Canada or other countries can walk back their climate commitments, says David Crane, former economics editor at the Toronto Star, in a post for The Hill Times. “When the history of this era is written, it will be the Trump administration’s reckless undermining of urgent global efforts to address climate change that will stand out as one of its greatest failings,” Crane writes. At some point, “the U.S. will again become a ‘responsible stakeholder’. But in the meantime, its failure to assume responsibility is no excuse for Canada or any other country to slack off. The climate challenge cannot be put off to tomorrow. It is an urgent challenge for today.”

At some point, “the U.S. will again become a ‘responsible stakeholder’.

I hope so. I hope that happens before other countries join them as ‘irresponsible stakeholders’