Trump’s snubbed COP — but he’s on everyone’s lips

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Whether fretting about the Iran war — or picturing life without him — the U.S. president is looming large in the minds of politicians and campaigners at the global climate summit.

ANTALYA, Turkey — Donald Trump is not at the COP31 climate summit but almost everyone is talking about him — and not in the way he’d like.

The U.S. president’s fateful decision to attack Iran earlier this year, sending global oil and gas prices soaring and compounding an international cost of living crisis, has been invoked — directly or indirectly — by leader after leader in Turkey as a reason to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels.

European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen said disruptions on the Strait of Hormuz are “shaking global energy markets.” The U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham invoked the specter of “wars across two continents” that “have sent fuel prices and gas bills soaring for families and businesses across the world.” U.N. Secretary General António Guterres noted how “recent conflicts made clear” that countries’ dependence on imported fossil fuels “is a recipe for chronic insecurity and a cost-of-living meltdown.”

For the first time since he was reelected two years ago — and promptly announced that the U.S. would withdraw from the U.N. climate process and double down on fossil fuels — delegates at COP are starting to picture life without him in the White House.

“His shadow is still here. His shadow is here because of the midterm elections,” said London Mayor Sadiq Khan, co-chair of the C40 group of city mayors who back stronger climate action. People could “see now, on the horizon, a world without President Trump” or “one of Trump’s protégés” he told POLITICO.

Notwithstanding the Republicans’ crushing midterms defeat — itself in part down to the war’s impact on international fuel prices — Trump still looms large.

“The shadow of Trump” is also present at COP because “everyone is struggling with the cost of living,” added Khan — who has form in beefing with the U.S. president.

“Whether you speak to people from the Middle East, from sub-Saharan Africa, from Europe … all these fingers are pointed at President Trump and what he did in Iran.

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