In theory a massive global depression would be. In the same the drop in consumerism during the pandemic lockdowns had a measurable effect, a similar drop in anyone being able to afford anything could do the same.
But as the other user mentioned, the EU is already rolling back on environmental requirements to try and resist an economic downturn. Other countries and trade blocs might do the same. The lockdowns had a significantand rapid bounce back when they ended, upping emissions, which might be replicated. And of course a depression would also cause mass, irreparable harm to millions of people regardless of any environmental benefits it might entail.
Tl;dr: Possible? Yes. Probable? Hard to say. Worth it? Almost certainly not.
And that’s assuming that this chain of events doesnt end in a shooting war. Those are not great for people or the environment.
We forget the need for “cheap and dirty” energy sources in that scenario. Just look at what happened with the covid.
“i’m sitting in a pile of shit. will anyone notice if i fart?”
Even if it didn’t (it will) his administration is doing all kinds of nasty rollbacks on climate initiatives and regulations related to the environment sooooo
Depressing thought of the day: if we had no emissions for a year, it would buy us a year.
It was just announced that the EU is pausing sustainability requirements on smaller business (< 500 employees) for 2 years. This stems from fears related to the trade war, as they want to keep smaller businesses competitive. Nevertheless, I’m pretty sure that this won’t be great for the environment.
The US is one of the worst CO2 emitters per capita iirc. So people buying less from them should be good. Also a big improvement globally would be if this leads to the LLM hype collapsing, because that led to a huge increase in emissions.
I say Yes!!
I mean, they are burning money like never before. And no emissions from these fires. Zero. Surely there must be some positive effect.
/s
Depends. Climate goals may be relaxed, because it’s very hard to push through those changes with a population that becomes poorer.
On the other hand if there is a depression less stuff would be produced and consumed.
I would not expect the tariffs to last. Most likely scenario is that he will try to use them as negotiation leverage. Everyone will get poorer, who will give in first? The bully or the bullied?
