Don't lose hope: Climate experts on how to keep your head up after Trump victory

What’s next for the climate? That’s the question many climate leaders, campaigners, and green voices have begun to ask during what has been described as a time of grieving.

Out of the many reflections, solidarity, renewed commitment and a call for assembly are already emerging.

In fact, the world's largest media platform for climate action, We Don’t Have Time, was born on the night that Trump won his first election eight years ago.

CEO and cofounder Ingmar Rentzhog suggested that his latest victory could be “the wake-up call we desperately need.”

“Many still choose to ignore the climate crisis, acting as if turning a blind eye is somehow a solution. But ignorance won't save us. Action will. There will be a turning point. It's always darkest before dawn. Let's make this the low point from which we rise together. We must start lifting each other up, supporting one another in the fight for our planet.”

Euronews Green has gathered rallying cries from some of the most inspiring voices in the climate movement. Read on for what needs to happen next.

1. It’s time to assemble

It appears that grief is quickly turning into action.

In Brussels early this morning, activists were busily installing a large poster outside the European Parliament calling for politicians not to mess with the deforestation law.

“I’m devastated - but the climate fight must continue and has never been more important,” Sophia Kianni told her audience on LinkedIn.

“Despite today’s outcome, the drive toward a global decarbonised economy doesn’t halt,” the young founder of Phia and the Climate Cardinals said.

“Those who support oil and gas will fall behind in the global shift toward sustainability. Clean energy technologies will continue to outcompete fossil fuels. Our work—your work—in communities around the globe breathes new life into our cause. After we are done grieving, let’s pick up the pieces, rally our spirits, and push harder for the world we believe in.”

Plans for a mass climate gathering in Washington D.C. are also underway.

“Today, we grieve. Tomorrow, we organise. And in a not too distant future… We win,” said Clover Hogan, founder of Force for Nature which helps young people turn eco-anxiety into climate action, said yesterday.

“Hope is a fragile choice and one we must make every day, even when it’s hard - because if we don’t, who will?”

2. Political leadership is just one side of the climate coin

We live in a free market, as pointed out by Chris Kaiser, an advocate for clean energy solutions:

“People tend to both underestimate and overestimate the impact POTUS has on clean energy policies.”

“People will keep buying EVs. This doesn't mean oil and gas production will go down….Those commodities are sold on the world stage, and one could look to a country like Norway to see how Europe's largest oil producer is also Europe's largest EV driving country. It's not a zero sum game!”

Similar sentiments were echoed by James Murray, Editor of Business Green, on X while tweeting in a personal capacity:

“If you are looking for a bright side many clean technologies are now competitive, the net zero transition is China and Europe’s industrial strategy, the last time Trump quit the Paris Agreement others stepped up, and his biggest apologist sells EVs.”

Christiana Figueres, co-host of the leading climate podcast Outrage + Optimism, will be all too aware of what Trump’s win means as she was one of the architects of the Paris Agreement, yet she too leaned on the free market in her reflections.

“Clean energy technologies will continue to outcompete fossil fuels, not just because they are healthier, faster, cleaner and more abundant, but because they undercut fossil fuels where they are at their weakest: their unsolvable volatility and inefficiency.”

3. More climate leaders are emerging every day from across the world

There were several reminders that the USA is not the only country that could lead on climate solutions - and that there’s plenty of room for other leaders to step up.

There are many other green-leaning leaders, such as Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, a climate scientist who ran on climate goals to become Mexico’s first female president this year.

Plus, there’s the likes of Mia Mottley, the vocal prime minister of Barbados.

There are also currently 53 MEPs representing the European Green Party elected and the Greens/European Free Alliance (EFA).

Paris Agreement architect Figueres also highlighted the power of the people in her reaction:

"The vital work happening in communities everywhere to regenerate our planet and societies will continue, imbued with a new, even more determined spirit today.”

“Being here in South Africa for The Earthshot Prize makes clear that there is an antidote to doom and despair. It’s action on the ground, and it’s happening in all corners of the Earth.”

4. Sustainability, by nature, is inherently optimistic

Joel Makower, founder of the Trellis Group (formerly GreenBiz), said that we need to double down and make every project and partnership count.

“Working in sustainability is an inherently optimistic, can-do profession. We show up every day with a vision of a positive future and a better world, and we work to develop and share ideas about how we’ll get there.”

“No president - no matter how racist, sexist or ill-informed - can take that optimism from us, lest we succumb to the forces that, for now, want to take America backwards toward an uncertain and unsettling future. We must do whatever we can to maintain that optimism and the can-do spirit of ourselves, our colleagues, our companies, our families and our communities.”

5. There were and always will be climate wins among despair

Leading climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe, who served as a lead author on the National Climate Assessment under the previous Trump administration, was one of the first to highlight the seven nature and climate-positive wins at the US state ballot.

These include a $10 billion (€9.27 billion) climate bond that funds climate resilience in California, the renewal of an environment and natural resources fund for the next 25 years in Minnesota, and, crucially, a renewed commitment to Washington state’s Climate Commitment Act.

86-year-old Jane Fonda, a long time climate campaigner who has yet to public comment on the election result, told Rolling Stone magazine in June that the “climate fight is what I’m going to do till I die.”