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Former U.S. President Donald Trump addresses a member of the news media after attending a border security briefing with Texas Governor Greg Abbott to discuss security at the U.S. southern border with Mexico in Weslaco, Texas, U.S. June 30, 2021.

GLASGOW, Nov 9 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Donald Trump did his damnedest to yank America from global efforts to combat climate change. The former president is not actually at COP26, the big UN climate conference in Glasgow, but his presence is palpable. And not just because he owns a Scottish golf club not so far away which played host to Indonesias delegation. A potential return to the White House hovers over the deliberations.

As nations sign up to long-term commitments to reduce their carbon emissions, banks pledge their balance sheets to assist and multinationals outdo each other with glossy promises to make their businesses cleaner and greener, many COP26 attendees wonder if Trump will return to the presidency in 2024. Their worry is that he will try to undo many of the things that have been agreed to try to keep the planet from warming up more than 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels.

Those fears are legitimate. For starters, soon after occupying the Oval Office, Trump pulled the United States from the Paris Agreement, reached at a previous COP in 2015. There, signatories agreed to keep the earth from warming by no more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. He then set about unwinding numerous environmental rules and regulations at home and shilled loudly for hydrocarbons. On the sidelines of the 2018 climate shindig in Poland, he even tried to stage a glitzy pro-coal event.

The hope among business leaders and policymakers in Glasgow is that things will be too far along to unwind should Republican Trump win the American election in three years and renege on commitments made by President Joe Biden, who would be both his Democratic successor and predecessor. That should lend greater urgency, as if the end of the human species were insufficient motivation, to the negotiations in the second and final week of COP26.

For the private sector, theres little chance of an easy backslide were Trump to become the first commander in chief since Grover Cleveland to hold two non-consecutive terms in office. The worlds biggest banks and corporations are baking net-zero ambitions into their strategies, incentive structures and the composition of their balance sheets and investment portfolios largely because customers, investors and employees are insisting they do so rather than politicians.

Climate change is a political issue. Inequality is a political issue. And as a business leader, you need to take a position on those things. However, we try to stick to things that are close to our own business operations, says Alan Jope, chief executive of the $135 billion consumer goods giant Unilever (ULVR.L), which is aiming for net-zero nirvana by 2039. The reason why we care about climate change is because a world that's on fire or under water is a terrible place for Unilever to do business.

With the possibility of a Trump 2024 victory becoming more conceivable following a string of electoral setbacks for Bidens party last week in state and local elections most notably the Virginia governorship - American leaders, including Biden himself and Trumps predecessor Barack Obama, are making extra efforts to convince delegates in Scotland that the United States is serious about combatting climate change. This reflects widespread distrust that Washington will be able to keep its word, even if its many multinational companies are largely on board with eradicating greenhouse gas emissions.

To wit, in a speech on Monday, Obama characterised Trumps tenure as four years of active hostility towards climate science. That followed Bidens promise the week before that the United States is not only back at the table but hopefully leading by the power of our example, adding my administration is working overtime to show that our climate commitment is action, not words."

When pictures emerged appearing to show Biden closing his eyes during the conference, Trump blasted his followers with an email saying: Even Biden couldnt stand hearing so much about the Global Warming Hoax, the 7th biggest Hoax in America, followed closely behind by the 2020 Presidential Election Scam, Russia, Russia, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, Impeachment Hoax #1, Impeachment Hoax #2 and, of course, the No Collusion finding of the Mueller Report. It is fair to say Trumps characterisation of global warming is not widely accepted by the tens of thousands of COP delegates.

This is not just a case of ignorable domestic American politics, however. U.S. moral leadership, combined with economic might, is critical to arm-twisting climate laggards including China, India, Russia and Saudi Arabia to accelerate their carbon reduction targets. If America is not on board, it will be difficult for the remaining developed nations to get China, for example, to move quicker on phasing out coal.

But its also about the money. One of the key announcements in Glasgow was an $8.5 billion package of grants and concessional loans and investments to support South Africas decarbonisation efforts. The deal was reached after months of high-level diplomacy between Germany, France, the UK, the European Union and Washington, and may prevent up to 1.5 gigatonnes of emissions over the next 20 years.

The South Africa agreement, with strong U.S. financial backing, is being heralded as a blueprint for enticing other poor countries, like Indonesia and Vietnam, to up their ambitions in leapfrogging hydrocarbons. That gives added urgency to sealing a few of these deals, with money firmly committed, before the 2024 U.S. elections.

Even if Trump runs and wins, American attitudes toward fighting climate change have shifted since he pulled out of the Paris Agreement in 2017. There is also an increasingly bipartisan support for certain policies, such as tax credits, to hasten the adoption of renewable energy. And many states have moved to insulate their efforts to reduce carbon emissions from federal policy. Thats according to David Livingston, senior advisor to U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry, in a panel discussion on hydrogen moderated by Breakingviews last week in Glasgow.

One of the hidden benefits ofthe past four years is that the sort of reaction of much of the United States to the lack of leadership on the global stage under the Trump administration was to create these sorts of antibodies of state and local level and corporate leadership that we in the Biden administration are not trying to replace, Livingston said. We are trying to amplify and empower (them) because we know we need a diverse fabric of allies and policies moving forward on this.

So, while there is a strong whiff of Trump redux about the proceedings in Glasgow, there is also a sense that with effort and maybe a little luck, current U.S. momentum will be maintained.

Follow @rob1cox on Twitter

Editing by George Hay and Karen Kwok

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Cox: Whiff of Donald Trump redux hangs over COP26 - Reuters