My generation can’t wait any longer for climate action – and Europe could hold the key

Something flipped last summer in both the visibility of the climate crisis and in the space the media devotes to it. Apparently, all it took was for the air to turn orange and unbreathable above Wall Street and for smoke to smother holidaymakers in Greece.

And yet, despite the fact that the conversation finally feels like it is approaching the level of ubiquitousness that the crisis merits, the solutions being proposed leave me deflated. And that’s not merely because of the lunatic hypocrisy of holding the Cop28 in Dubai, where it will be presided over by the CEO of the world’s 12th-largest fossil-fuel company.

In Europe, where the right still seems to inhabit a reality shared with everyone else, it is nevertheless pushing back against the still-insufficient commitments the EU has made. (Despite being insufficient, these are the most serious large-scale commitments to cut emissions in the world.)

Critiquing US Republicans on climate policy seems as pointless as criticising Dr Evil for planning world domination. But even among the US left, there is a disconnect between the gravity and global nature of the crisis, and policy proposals more focused on banning certain behaviours to relatively small-scale effect than on driving systemic change.

Without seeking to discourage anyone from living a more climate-virtuous life, individual choices are not enough. Not when global greenhouse gas emissions are primarily about generating electricity and heat (around 38%), non-aviation transport (21%), and agriculture (23%). And at worst, the focus on individuals may even be purposeful distraction. As Michael Mann, one of the climate scientists responsible for the “hockey-stick curve”, points out: “British Petroleum gave us one of the first individual carbon footprint calculators because BP, the fossil fuel industry, wanted us so focused on our own carbon footprint so that we ignored theirs.”

I see a growing despair in my own age cohort and the one behind us. We desperately want creative, ambitious and systemic action, and in its absence, there is rage. I’m not sure if western governments truly grasp the extent to which their demographic future is losing faith in institutions across the board – even as liberal democracy itself is a house of cards built on little more than the faith of the people who live in it. And yet, at the same time, those governments are caught in a trap, because the maths of global emissions is no longer just about Europe (7%) and the United States (13%), even if it historically was.

I’m not saying this to excuse European or American inaction – if blame is what we’re after, then let’s be clear about who is responsible: the fossil-fuel executives who knew, for decades, what their products would do and intentionally obfuscated, misled and blocked regulation; our grandparents, who blew the chance in the 80s and 90s to “leave a better world to their children” and instead elected leaders who did the environmental opposite; and our boomer parents, who did know better, but dawdled too long to do things decisively and at scale.

I’m saying it because, if Europe is going to take a serious step towards corralling global action on climate change, it will have to do so in a way that influences what happens beyond its borders. And not simply by setting a good example, but by incentivising others to follow suit. Where Europe does have weight is economically – especially if it were to pursue a coordinated, climate-focused trade policy with the United States.

At a recent panel at Sciences Po’s Paris School of International Affairs, Daniel Esty, an environmental lawyer who helped negotiate the original 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (which gave birth to the annual Cops), was hopeful that at the World Trade Organization’s next round of talks, countries would put sustainability at the centre of global trade by ending fossil-fuel subsidies while allowing subsidies and industrial policy that promote sustainability.

If it plays out that way, great. But if it doesn’t, we don’t have time to wait fiddling at the edges. In the event of failure, the EU must be even more ambitious with its carbon market: the emissions trading scheme (ETS) and impending carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), a first-of-its kind mechanism known as the “carbon border tax”.

In the ETS, there is an economic incentive for everyone to reduce emissions. EU companies regulated by the scheme must purchase permits to account for each tonne of carbon they emit; polluters pay, non-polluters can sell permits they didn’t need to use. The CBAM, meanwhile, obliges importers to pay tax on “embedded emissions” in goods entering the EU’s single market. When I asked, Esty said that he considers both mechanisms to be “conceptually correct” when it comes to driving emissions reductions.

What if the EU built on these initiatives by creating a “climate club”? Inside the club, the ETS would reign, subsidies that promoted sustainability would be allowed, trade would be open and the proceeds from the sale of carbon permits could be directed to financing green investment in lower-income members. After all, people in developing countries should not be paying the price, be it economic or environmental, for a crisis they did not create. On the flipside, many developing countries stand to benefit in the long run from a trade regime that prices emissions, notably because many have huge renewable energy potential. The virtuous behaviour inside the “club” would be protected by a beefed-up CBAM, which would become progressively more punitive as time went on. As the club grew, so would the benefits of joining – and the costs of remaining outside.

This would amount to throwing down a gauntlet to the United States, which, under a second-term Biden presidency, may be coaxed into reversing its historic stance and joining. If it did, it would result in the type of gamechanging “mega-Brussels effect” that Peter Orszag, former director of the US Office of Management and Budget, recently wrote about.

Under a hypothetical president Trump, the challenge posed by a European climate club would certainly backfire. But then again, a hypothetical president Trump would leave Nato and launch a trade war against the EU anyway. So, as Trump himself said often on the campaign trail in 2015 and 2016, “What have you got to lose?” The answer, we know, is “our planet”.

• Alexander Hurst is a Guardian columnist. He is a France-based writer and an adjunct lecturer at Sciences Po, the Paris Institute of Political Studies