This month’s Earth Day celebration is looking to be less rosy than the last, when leaders from 174 countries convened at United Nations headquarters in New York City to sign the Paris Agreement—an unprecedented global pact to reduce climate change. The outcome of the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference in Paris, or COP21, the Paris Agreement called on 196 nations to reduce their carbon emissions and invest in energy alternatives—a landmark achievement in environmental policy.

In the United States, environmentalists are likely to spend Earth Day building protest signage for the  People’s Climate March. Many are still reeling from the appointments of former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson to secretary of state and climate skeptic Scott Pruitt to head up the EPA. It’s hard to celebrate doing your part to save the climate when your country is busily rolling back key waterway and wildlife protections, and unveiling the Bureau of Land Management’s festive new website (which recently included a photo of a coal seam—because beautiful wilderness vistas are so last year).

According to a new report from European NGOs Carbon Market Watch and Transport & Environment, things aren’t looking up internationally, either. Last week, Roger Harrabin, environment and energy analyst for the BBC, reported that even as the costs of solar and wind energy falls, some major nations are scaling back on their green energy investments. In Europe, only Sweden, Germany, and France are living up to those terms set in the Paris Agreement. 

Harrabin predicted this might happen. Earlier this year he produced Climate Change: The Trump Card, a BBC Radio broadcast that questioned whether the new U.S. administration, combined with the E.U.’s waning stability and the rise of right-wing populism on a global scale, will in fact undo what the rest of the world has been trying to accomplish.

Sierra recently called Harrabin at his London office to discuss a number of things, including whether even a failure of the Paris accord can bring back coal. (Spoiler alert: Harrabin says no.)

Sierra: To what extent do you think the Trump effect is contributing to countries scaling back on their energy investments since COP21?

Roger Harrabin: I think it’s still too soon to say, but that question is what inspired me to do the radio piece. Last year, there had been a lot of reporting on what Mr. Trump would do if elected president, and I was concerned about the fact that there was little focus on what the rest of the world was doing. The U.S. is a major emitter of greenhouse gases, but now it plays a much smaller role in climate policy than it previously did.

Who, would you say, is really stepping up to the plate?

In Europe, of course Sweden and France and Germany are in the lead. What surprised me most was discovering that India has the world’s biggest solar plant as well as a chemical plant designed to eat its own CO2 emissions. Also surprising? That India is surpassing the commitments it made at the Paris climate change meeting. Its latest electricity plan goes far further in terms of ending its reliance on fossil fuels in the long term and phasing out of coal, too—far more quickly than anyone had noticed.

It hadn’t gotten a lot of publicity here in the U.K., and it’s surprising because during the meeting [in Paris], Indian diplomats were quite insistent about installing coal-fired plants. But now they’ve promised they’ll stop building new coal-fired operations. It shows a couple of things—their determination to play their part and also the incredible advances in new technology, especially solar. India is notably tech-friendly—it’s something they’re confident about using.

Why do you think that’s been, as you say, somewhat underreported?

Some of the world’s poorest nations pledged to go carbon-free, and I think it really embarrassed the E.U. and the U.S. It’s going to be interesting to see what Mr. Trump will do about climate change—will he defund climate programs? Will he pull the U.S. out of the Paris deal?

Can you talk about the implications of the U.S. pulling out of Paris?

Before being sworn in, Rex Tillerson suggested that it was worth having a seat at the table but questioned how much should be done in terms of policy—which raises the question of whether the rest of the world will even still accept the U.S. at that table. That’ll depend on what Mr. Trump does.

So, Trump is faced with more of a dilemma—if he stays in, he may get severe pushback from other countries for scrapping Obama’s policies. If he pulls out, he’ll get diplomatic flack and will have absolutely no say in how global matters unfold. His hand is trickier than most people are suggesting.

So what happens when the rest of the world says, "OK, U.S.A.—you scrapped it. Off you go! Bye bye"? What happens to all the high-tech industries in the states that want to keep up with China and India and all the jobs in solar? And of course, there are way more of those than there are in oil and gas and coal. How does Mr. Trump deal with his businesses back home? I think this is why we haven’t seen a presidential edict yet—he’s working it out. I’m unsurprised he hasn’t said anything about climate change. If I were him, I’d be thinking very carefully about how to balance my pre-election promises and make sure the U.S. doesn’t go adrift from the rest of the world as it supposedly transitions back to coal.

What’s your educated guess on the outcome?

I would put a small bet on him staying in the Paris Agreement, just because tactically, if I were in the U.S. administration, that’s where I’d like to be. And that throws up a whole lot of questions about how the rest of the world responds. At this summer’s G20 Summit in Germany, world leaders are going to be talking about taking over leadership of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate Change—which includes the world’s largest emitters—and get people talking about using tech to clean up the climate. The U.S. had been running it under Obama, but according to one report, China and Germany are vying to take it over. It’s massively risky to get cut off from what most agree is a massive endeavor to get the whole world out of fossil fuels by the end of the century. Is the U.S. really going to turn its back? I’m interested to see the outcome.

How can fellow global leaders convince Trump that it’s smart business to invest in climate science research and policy?

I absolutely have no idea. There will be diplomatic endeavors, but I think they’ll take place behind the scenes. Other business interests, especially multinational corporations, will certainly be saying, "Hang on a minute, America!" France has talked about putting border taxes on American goods. Is Mr. Trump going to end up in a trade war with everyone? Normally, those result in a lot of corpses on the battlefield.

How has your position as an environmental analyst changed in the wake of Trump’s presidency?

It’s certainly going to keep me in business for awhile, that’s for sure! We thought we had a handle on the climate change story after COP21, the world’s first multinational agreement that had everyone singing in concert. And when one of the main players in the orchestra gets up and leaves, that certainly makes things interesting. Mr. Trump could try to set up an alternative system, but Rex Tillerson is a Saudi guy—he’s got plenty of business interests in Saudi Arabia—and he will know that when the Republicans lose power in eight or 12 years, that a Democrat or even another Republican administration will almost certainly fall back into line with the global scenario. If you’re going to invest in a system, you want at least 30 years to get it on track and see returns. So, is anyone really going to invest in new coal-fired plants? I don’t think so.

Follow Roger Harrabin on Twitter.