The acceleration of the climate crisis under Trump and the Republicans

Bob Sheak, June 17, 2025

The current administration is not a supporter of “clean energy” alternatives

Brad Plumer and Harry Stevens report on the Trump/Republican aim to end the “clean energy boom” that occurred during the Biden administration (https://nytimes.com/2025/05/13/climate/ira-republican-tax-bill-clean-energy.html).

“The party’s signature tax plan would kill most Biden-era incentives,” they write. Overlooked by the Republicans, “G.O.P. districts have the most to lose.” They refer to “wind farms in Wyoming, to a “huge solar factory expansion in Georgia. Lithium mines in Nevada. Vacuums that suck carbon from the air in Louisiana.”

The funding for such project comes from Biden supported tax credits for clean energy provided by the 2022 Inflation Adjustment Reduction Act. The act authorized more than $843 billion for the creation of such projects. However, Plumer and Stevens write, “only about $321 billion of that money has actually been spent, with many projects still on the drawing board, according to data made public on Tuesday by the Clean Investment Monitor, a joint project of the Rhodium Group and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.”

The Republican dominated Congress and Senate and are unlikely to allocate the remaining $522 billion as they search for ways to pay for a multi-trillion-dollar tax cut favoring the rich and wholly supported by President Trump.

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It’ not surprising that under Trump, Republicans show no inclination to spend money on clean energy or to reduce support for fossil fuels, the most important drivers of global warming. Historically, the U.S. has led the world in spewing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and remains only second to China today. China is also the largest producer of clean energy.

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The U.S. as a leader in causing the planet to get ever-more warm

Robert Hunziker writes on the U.S.’s major role in causing global warming and how Trump and the Republicans ignore or deny this growing existential problem (https://counterpunch.org/2025/05/16/americas-impact-on-the-global-thermostate).

The energy and environmental policies of the Trump administration and Republican controlled Congress and Senate assure that in the meantime this climate-denying or -evading will go on. Hunziker points out that the Trump administration’s “push for 100% fossil fuels and as much coal burning as possible while trashing mitigation of climate change, which is characterized by the right-wing White House and U.S. Congress as an expensive hoax, a farce, a threat to the U.S. economy, plus massive roll backs of environmental regulations that force American businesses to spend more to keep America’s environment clean.”

Consistent with this position, Trump is pulling the U.S. “out of the Paris ’15 climate accord.” Consequently,

“Under the Trump administration, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions levels are estimated to rise up to 36 percent higher than current policy by 2035.” (The Trump Administration’s Retreat from Global Climate Leadership, Center for American Progress, Jan. 21, 2025). This certainly helps guarantee a hotter planet.

There is more from Hunziker. The Trump administration is also signaling “its intent to go one step further and withdraw from the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC, est. 1992). This is the underlying framework, “the father of international cooperation on climate change” that led to meetings such as Paris ’15. Abandonment will freeze-out the U.S. from any future global climate change negotiations and set a dangerous precedent. This could trigger a domino effect among nations questioning climate obligations and destabilizing the global consensus the Paris Agreement represents.”

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Fossil fuels take priority

Bill Mckibben offers other examples of how the Trump administration “[c]ares More About Growing Fossil Fuel Profits Than Shrinking Your Energy Bill,”

(https://commondreams.org/opinion/trump-waste-energy). The article was published on May 20, 2025. His central point: “Many things the Trump administration does are simply designed to waste energy, because that is good for the incumbent producers, i.e. Big Oil.”

McKibben continues, “the ultimate customer for the Trump administration is the oil industry. And really for the GOP as a whole: It became increasingly clear this week that the Republican congressional majority is all too willing to gut the Inflation Reduction Act, even though that will come at a big price to consumers, in its effort to help Big Oil.”

The DOE put their strategy pretty plainly in a filing to the Federal Register last week: Their goal, they said, was “bolstering American energy dominance by increasing exports and subsequently the reliance of foreign nations on American energy.” If you’re a foreign government, that about sums it up: Either you can rely on the sun and wind which shine on your country, or you can rely on the incredibly unreliable U.S. China, meanwhile, is essentially exporting energy security, in the form of clean energy tech.

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Trump is the only climate denier among national leaders

David Gelles writes on Trump as the only climate denier internationally (https://nytimes.com/2025/05/14/climate/trump-climate-denial.html).

Gelles notes, “The administration is not only allowing more greenhouse gases. It is undermining the nation’s ability to understand and respond to a hotter planet.”

The evidence.

“When the Trump administration declared two weeks ago [early May] that it would largely disregard the economic cost of climate change as it sets policies and regulations, it was just the latest step in a multipronged effort to erase global warming from the American agenda.

“But [Gelles adds] President Trump is doing more than just turning a blind eye to the fact that the planet is growing hotter. He is weakening the country’s capacity to understand global warming and to prepare for its consequences.

“The administration has dismantled climate research, firing some of the nation’s top scientists, and gutted efforts to chart how fast greenhouse gases are building up in the atmosphere and what that means for the economy, employment, agriculture, health and other aspects of American society. The government will no longer track major sources of greenhouse gases, data that has been used to measure the scale and identify sources of the problem for the past 15 years.”

“‘By getting rid of data, the administration is trying to halt the national discussion about how to deal with global warming,’ said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles. The notion of there being any shared factual reality just seems to be completely out the window,’ he said.”

“At the same time, through cuts to the National Weather Service and by denying disaster relief through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the administration has weakened the country’s ability to prepare for and recover from hurricanes, wildfires, droughts and other extreme weather that is being made worse by climate change.”

“The president is also moving to loosen restrictions on air pollution, which experts say will lead to more planet warming emissions, and to overturn the government’s legal authority to regulate those gases.”

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Cutting rules on energy efficiency

Rachel Frazin reports on May 12, 2025 that the Energy Department is proposing to cut 47 rules on energy efficiency and other rules as the “largest deregulatory effort in history” (https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5296169-energy-department-proposes-to-cut-47-rules-in-largest-deregulatory-effort-in-history/?tbref=hp). Frazin offers the following examples.

“The department plans to ax a long list of efficiency regulations, including those pertaining to stoves, ovens, showerheads, clothes washers, dishwashers and microwaves.

“The rules also apply to a smattering of other policies ranging for guidelines under which the department buys oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to nondiscrimination requirements for grant recipients.”

“‘While it would normally take years for the Department of Energy to remove just a handful of regulations, the Trump Administration assembled a team working around the clock to reduce costs and deliver results for the American people in just over 110 days,’ Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a written statement.”

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Trump’s Order to Expand Logging Threatens to Increase Climate-Fueled Wildfires

Curtis Johnson considers the implications of Trump’s order to expand logging and how it will increase climate-fueled wildfires in an article published on May 17, 2025 (https://truthout.org/articles/trumps-order-to-expand-logging-threatens-to-increase-climate-fueled-wildfires).

“On March 1, President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled “Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production.” The order claimed “onerous Federal policies have hindered domestic timber production and that expanding logging was a matter of protecting “national and economic security.”

It ordered the secretary of the Interior and head of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), who oversee the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) respectively, to develop a plan to expand timber targets and streamline permitting “to suspend, revise, or rescind all existing regulations, orders, guidance documents, policies, settlements, consent orders, and other agency actions that impose an undue burden on timber production.”

The responsible departments and agencies were instructed to find categorical exclusions to the National Environmental Policy Act and use “emergency regulations” to circumvent the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

In April, USDA head Brooke Rollins directed the stripping of forest protections on more than half of all national forests and called for expanding timber production by 25 percent to address a ‘wildfire emergency,’ and restore forest ‘resources.’ A report from the Associated Press says the directive “exempts affected forests from an objection process that allows outside groups, tribes and local governments to challenge logging proposals at the administrative level before they are finalized.”

“A map of forests Rollins has targeted includes all national forests in Washington State and California, and large sections throughout the west and other parts of the country. It even includes some wilderness areas. These forests contain some of the most cherished old-growth and mature forest ecosystems remaining in the U.S.

“In the Pacific Northwest, millions of acres of older and mature forests and old-growth dependent species like the northern spotted owl were finally protected by the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) in the 1990s after a century of logging that had reduced the forest to about a fourth of its historical extent. The NWFP happened as a result of intense forest defense and protest by Earth First! and many other environmental groups, studies by forest ecologists and court injunctions. The idea that these forests of immense trees, stunning natural beauty, rich biodiversity and crucial reserves of carbon sequestration could now, once again, be opened to logging is stomach-turning.”

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Trump Guts FEMA and NOAA?

Robert Kuttner writes in the American Prospect on Trump’s gutting of FEMA and NOAA, The American Prospect, June 4, 2025

(https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2025-06-04-why-would-trump-gut-fema-and-noaa).

Today on TAP: Destroying American weather science will create a perfect storm of disaster.

“June 1 marked the beginning of hurricane season, a period whose existence was news to Trump’s head of FEMA, David Richardson, who had no prior experience managing disaster relief. Richardson was appointed to replace FEMA acting chief Cameron Hamilton, who was fired summarily after telling a congressional subcommittee that he didn’t think FEMA should be shut down.

“Trump’s attack on FEMA goes beyond even the Project 2025 design, which proposed to cut FEMA and turn some of its functions over to the states. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in March that she wanted FEMA shut down entirely (she later backpedaled and spoke of shrinking and reforming it). But most states have nothing like FEMA’s capacity or experience, and don’t want FEMA reduced or closed.

Kuttner – “Due to actions early in Trump’s term, FEMA has lost an estimated 2,000 employees out of about 6,100, according to The Wall Street Journal. Many of these were nominally probationary employees, but due to the agency’s need to quickly staff up in an emergency, these tended to be experienced staffers who work for FEMA part of every year.

Kuttner – “More damage is coming in the Big Beautiful Budget Bill. Trump’s budget request called for cutting FEMA by $646 million.

Kuttner – “This is occurring as FEMA’s much-depleted sister agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), is predicting as many as 19 hurricanes this summer and fall, including three to five major ones likely to cause massive damage. To add injury to insult, Trump has rejected bipartisan requests to continue the Biden policy of covering 100 percent of the costs of relief and recovery operations after major disasters. The usual split is 75 percent federal, matched by 25 percent state.”

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The economic costs of rolling back clean energy

Marianne Lavelle refers on June 12, 2025 to a study that finds clean energy rollbacks will cost the economy $1.1 trillion by 2035 (https://insideclimatenews.org/news/12062025/clean-energy-rollbacks-will-cost-trillion-by-2035). Here are a few excerpts from Lavelle’s article.

“In a week when the Trump administration moved forward on multiple fronts to repeal U.S. climate policies, a new analysis quantified the potential costs for public health, households and the economy—including a stunning $1.1 trillion reduction in U.S. gross domestic product by 2035.

“The study by the University of Maryland’s Center for Global Sustainability found that any economic benefits to the policy retreat—which Environmental Protection Agency Lee Zeldin placed at $1.2 billion a year from the power plant regulatory rollback alone—would be overwhelmed by the negative effects of greater air pollution and contraction in new manufacturing and jobs associated with an energy transition.

“‘Overall, there are more GDP losses if we roll back clean energy policies,’ said Alicia Zhao, research manager at the center and lead author of the report. ‘It means even if some of the states are getting gains from the fossil fuel industry, it’s being offset by the losses in clean energy benefits.’”

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Millions of American breath unhealthy air

Rebecca Dzombak reports on research that finds almost half of Americans breath unhealthy air (https://nytimes.com/2025/04/23/climate/american-lung-association-air-report.html). Here are excerpts from her article.

“At least 156 million Americans, about 46 percent of the population, live with unsafe levels of ozone, particulate pollution or both, according to the American Lung Association’s annual State of the Air report.

“Plans by the Trump administration to loosen environmental regulations and cut funding for air quality research would make matters worse, the report says.”

“Air quality in the United States has been generally improving since the Clean Air Act was enacted in 1970, with levels of key pollutants dropping by nearly 80 percent. But millions of Americans still breathe polluted air every day, leading to both acute and chronic health conditions that, in some cases, increase the risk of early death.”

“The Biden administration aimed to improve air quality with measures like tighter rules for vehicle emissions and on mercury and carbon emissions from power plants. The Trump administration is already working to reverse those regulations.”

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Concluding thoughts

The evidence clearly indicates that the Trump administration is doing its best to undermine efforts to develop and expand clean energy sources, especially those based on solar and wind and expand our use of climate-destroying fossil fuels and other greenhouse gases. Trump not only wants to expand domestic production of gas, oil, and coal but also to export liquified natural gas to other countries.

Meanwhile, the climate crisis worsens and the ability to reverse it is limited and being reversed.

Ben Noll reports on the high rates of high temperatures and humidity to come across the U.S., Washington Post, June 17, 2025 (https://washingtonpost.com/weather/2025/06/17/extreme-humidity-heat-city-forecast-maps). His major point:

“Over the next two weeks, extreme levels of humidity are forecast to hit around 40 states, with the first wave of very muggy weather building in central and eastern states through Thursday. Across the country, around 170 million people will also experience temperatures above 90 degrees.”

Trump will likely pay little attention to the climate crisis, and it will get worse

Bob Sheak, Nov 14, 2024

Introduction

The U.S. remains the second largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, behind China. The Biden administration has done some things in attempts to reduce such emissions, but, despite these efforts, emissions in the US have continued to increase. Indeed, 2024 is the hottest year on record.

Trump, a climate-crisis denier, will as president exacerbate the problem and give open-ended support to fossil fuel production and consumption and the industries that benefit from them. Rising emissions and the rising temperatures they produce represent an existential problem that will likely threaten to generate massive dislocations of people and threaten the survival of millions, if not billions, of people in America and around the globe.

There are plenty of books that tell this cataclysmic story. Here are a few examples. Mark Lynas’ book examines in detail the effects of rising temperatures (Our Final Warning: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency). Abrahm Lustgarten focuses on the “uprooting of America” and the millions of people who will be forced to move, as their communities become too hot to continue (On the Move: The Overheating Earth and the Uprooting of America). Jeff Goodall zeros in on the effects of Americans of rising heat levels (The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet).

I – Biden’s record on the climate crisis has bright spots

Mike Ludwig reports that Biden made steady progress on climate, but adds that Trump is poised to dismantle it (https://truthout.org/articles/biden-made-slow-but-steady-progress-on-climate-trump-is-poised-to-dismantle-it). On Biden’s climate record, Ludwig writes:

“While politicians and the media obsessed about the economy and immigration under President Joe Biden, his administration has been running the most robust Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in a generation, making modest but steady progress on vexing problems such as environmental racism, toxic chemical contamination and updating infrastructure to run on cleaner energy.

“Flush with nearly $29 billion in Inflation Reduction Act funding, the EPA is stewarding billions of dollars in grants for upgrading water infrastructure, reducing climate-warming pollution and expanding renewable energy.

Other government agencies are involved in climate-related work. Ludwig points out,

“The climate work goes beyond the EPA, with multiple agencies implementing an expansive plan to drastically reduce industrial releases of methane, a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide. For the first time, federal regulators are questioning whether permitting private companies to export vast quantities of fossil gas produced in the U.S. — including on publicly owned land — could be harmful to both the environment and consumers struggling to pay energy bills.”

Wikipedia has further details on Biden’s Inflation Adjustment Act (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate-change-policy-of-the-United-States).

“The Inflation Reduction Act was a reconciliation bill that was the largest investment in climate change mitigation in US history to date, setting out provisions to invest in increasing renewable energy and electrifying areas of the US economy. The legislation, signed into law by Biden on August 16, 2022, invests approximately $400 billion to climate-related projects, primarily in the form of tax credits for consumers and private businesses. The majority of these investments is intended to increase the amount of wind and solar energy in the United States grid by providing tax incentives to renewable energy producers, as well as companies that manufacture batteries and wind and solar power components.[145][146][147][148] The Act may also invest $28–48 billion in building retrofits and energy efficiency, $23–436 billion in clean transportation, $22–26 billion in environmental justice, land use, air pollution reduction and resilience, and $3–21 billion in sustainable agriculture.[149][150][151]”

II. Withal, Global warming continues to rise

Despite the efforts of the Biden administration, Austyn Gaffney reports that researchers find that 2024 temperatures are on track for a record high (https://nytimes.com/2024/11/06/climate/2024-temperatures-hottest-year.html). He writes,

“This year [2024] will almost certainly be the hottest year on record, beating the high set in 2023, researchers announced on Wednesday [Nov. 6].

Gaffney cites the research done by “the Copernicus Climate Change Service, the European Union agency that monitors global warming,” and has forecast “that 2024 would be the first calendar year in which global temperatures consistently rose 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.

“That’s the temperature threshold that countries agreed, in the Paris Agreement, that the planet should avoid crossing. Beyond that amount of warming, scientists say, the Earth will face irreversible damage.

“Greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are dangerously heating up the planet, imperiling biodiversity, increasing sea level rise and drought and making extreme weather events more common and more destructive.

Gaffney quotes Samantha Burgess who refers to recent storms like Hurricanes Helene and Milton and the flooding in Spain to exemplify just how devastating weather intensified by warming can be.”

“A report issued by the United Nations last month found that the world’s current climate plans are inadequate, only providing a 2.6 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 compared to 2019 levels. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said that reduction needs to be an order of magnitude larger: at least a 43 percent reduction by 2030 and 60 percent by 2035.”

“The reality is, every fraction of a degree matters,” Dr. Burgess said. “The sooner globally we cut emissions, the sooner our climate will stabilize.”

“If President-elect Donald J. Trump withdraws the United States from the Paris accord, as he has promised and as he did during his first administration, it would be ‘very bad news,’ according to Diana Urge-Vorsatz, a professor at Central European University and vice chairwoman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the U.N. body that provides governments with scientific information to develop climate policies.”

The US and most world governments are not doing enough

Zia Weise and Lucia Mackenzie provide more details on global warming and how, according to the UN, the world is on track for catastrophic 3 degrees Celsius warming (https://politico.eu/article/united-nations-emissions-gap-global-warming-data-climate-change-report). The article was published on Oct. 24, 2024. Here’s some of what they write.

“The world is already 1.3C hotter than before the Industrial Revolution.

“Current plans and policies will lead to 2.6 to 3.1 degrees Celsius of global warming this century, with zero chance of limiting the temperature increase to the totemic 1.5C target agreed in Paris in 2015, according to a new report out Thursday.

“In fact, existing measures are falling so far short of what’s needed that the world even risks blowing past 2C, the Paris accord’s upper limit, the U.N. warned.

“The severity and frequency of dangerous heat waves, destructive storms and other disasters rises with every fraction of warming. At 3C, scientists say, the world could pass several points of no return that would dramatically alter the planet’s climate and increase sea levels, such as due to the collapse of polar ice caps.

Weise and Mackenzie continue: “If nations do not implement current commitments, then show a massive increase in ambition in the new pledges, followed by rapid delivery, the Paris Agreement target of holding global warming to 1.5C will be dead within a few years and 2C will take its place in the intensive care unit,” said Inger Andersen, the U.N. environment chief.”

“Andersen said that worldwide, measures to reduce emissions will require a ‘minimum six-fold increase’ in investment, ‘backed by reform of the global financial architecture and strong private sector action.’” Such investment is not in the cards during a Trump administration.

“In general, the G20 — which comprises industrialized countries such as the EU and U.S. as well as Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia — were responsible for 77 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2023.
In stark contrast, all 55 African Union countries accounted for just 6 percent.”

“After all, while the entire G20 accounted for 77 percent of last year’s global emissions, the largest six polluters among them were responsible for more than 60 percent. The U.N. report doesn’t name and shame, but authors are referring to China (30 percent), the United States (11 percent), India (8 percent), the EU (6 percent), Russia (5 percent) and Brazil (2 percent).”

“Progress among the G20 is a mixed bag: China’s emissions grew 5.2 percent in 2023, while the EU’s fell 7.5 percent; and while China is much more populous, its per-capita emissions in 2023 were 11 tons to the EU’s 7.3 tons.

“U.S. emissions fell by 1.4 percent, but American per-capita emissions remain the second-highest at 18 tons after Russia’s 19 tons. India’s are just 2.9 tons — even though its emissions rose by 6 percent last year.”

U.N. environment chief Andersen urges rich nations like the US to phase out greenhouse gas emissions at a much faster rate than at present.

III. Trump and his administration will reverse the limited achievements of the Biden presidency on climate.

One of Trump’s signature slogans is “drill baby drill,” which means, as he has told us, his upcoming government, once installed after January 20,2025, will (1) increase government support for fossil fuels, (2) reduce support for solar, wind, and geothermal, (3) encourage more export of fracked natural gas, (4) eviscerate or close the Environmental Protection Agency, (5) open up public land to drilling; and (6) serve as an international model for other countries to follow his example.

Mike Ludwig (cited previously) reminds us that “Trump is threatening to unleash pollution, increase emissions and incapacitate the most robust EPA in a generation (https://truthout.org/articles/biden-made-slow-but-steady-progress-on-climate-trump-is-poised-to-dismantle-it). And he will have the power to do it, as result of being chosen to be president by millions of American voters in the recent election.

“…efforts to meet international climate commitments,” Ludwig writes, “seem certain to stall, if not end abruptly, after Donald Trump is reinstalled in the White House and Republicans take over the Senate if not all of Congress. According to the most recent information, as of Nov. 12, Republicans will control the White House, both branches of the U.S. Congress, and the Supreme Court when Trump and his party come into power after January 20, 2025.”

With such political power, Ludwig continues, “[t]he damage will go far beyond global warming. If Trump’s rhetoric and first-term record are any indication of what is ahead, the president-elect and the industries willing to curry his favor are poised to make the U.S. a more polluted and dangerous place to live.”

Trump will move to make “steep budget cuts” in the EPA, and perhaps move the agency out of the capitol, “as enforcement of clean air and water standards plummets. Career public servants are expected to be replaced with loyalists from the private sector. Back in 2017, Trump appointed a former coal lobbyist to lead the EPA.” Trump is also expected to dissolve the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, the “agency tracks climate change for policy makers and the public.”

Climate scientists at the United Nations are worried. They view the climate crisis with words like “catastrophic” to describe our future without swift action.

“Trump and the Republicans have told a convenient lie to voters, accusing the Democrats of throttling domestic oil and gas production and sending gas and energy prices through the roof. In reality, fossil fuel prices are set by global forces the U.S. president has little control over. The U.S. is already the world’s top producer of oil and gas, and domestic prices would likely come down if the industry didn’t export so much overseas.

“The consequences of this election are clear for those on the frontlines of the climate crisis,” said Jennifer Krill, executive director of the environmental justice group Earthworks, in a statement. “Low-income communities and communities of color will bear the brunt of impact, from poisoned air and water to extreme weather events and rising sea levels, all within our lifetimes.” But the effects will be everywhere.

Fossil fuel companies will profit

Evan Halper, Maxine Joselow and Chico Harlan delve into this issue
(https://washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/11/06/trump-win-climate-change-oil-gas).

The journalists report, “Trump’s plans have the potential to send fossil fuel companies’ profits soaring while threatening the world’s climate goals.”

“President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House could reverse the gains the United States has made in fighting global warming, experts said, by cementing his plans to unleash domestic fossil fuel production, dismantle key environmental rules and scale back federal support for renewable energy and electric vehicles.

“It has also raised fears among U.S. allies and even some major energy executives who warn that a U.S. exit from global climate efforts will hurt American industry as the rest of the world shifts away from fossil fuels.

“Trump’s election creates ‘a very long pathway for fossil fuels,’ Ben Cahill, an energy scholar at the University of Texas at Austin, said in a phone interview Wednesday. ‘Investors will feel the outlook is brighter. The industry will be under less pressure.’”

“He (Trump) is expected to ease a suite of restrictions on the oil industry’s emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. And he will probably cancel the Biden administration’s pause on permits for new liquefied natural gas export projects, clearing the way for the industry to build billions of dollars worth of infrastructure that could increase U.S. emissions and keep gas flowing to other nations for decades to come.”

“Trump is expected to take aim at these investments by targeting President Joe Biden’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, which he has repeatedly called a ‘green new scam.’ But he would likely need Congress to repeal the law, and some Republican lawmakers may balk.

“Cahill said that the law’s tax credits for consumers, including those for EVs, rooftop solar panels and heat pumps ‘will definitely be on the chopping block’ but ‘the investment incentives for wind, solar and battery storage have proven to be quite popular with big business.’”

Nonetheless, “[t]he incoming president will have much more latitude to reverse dozens of environmental rules that oil and gas executives find burdensome. During an April dinner at his Mar-a-Lago Club, Trump asked oil executives to steer $1 billion toward his campaign while promising to relax industry regulations.

“The oil industry responded by donating tens of millions of dollars to his campaign and crafting a playbook for the new administration. It includes draft executive orders that would end restrictions on drilling on public lands and shift the Interior Department’s priorities away from protecting vulnerable species and ecosystems.”

“Trump has argued that unshackling oil companies from environmental rules could drive the price of gasoline below $2 per gallon. But energy analysts are skeptical. Prices at the pump typically have little connection to White House policies, and are largely driven instead by the coalition of oil-producing nations led by Saudi Arabia and Russia. And Trump will take office at a time when the United States is already producing more oil and gas than any country ever has.

Trump’s record is bad. “During his first term, Trump weakened or wiped out more than 125 environmental rules and policies touching everything from toxic chemicals to endangered species.”

When Trump withdrew from the Paris agreement for the first time, a group called America Is All In announced that dozens of states, cities and corporations were still committed to the pact. Gina McCarthy, the former White House climate czar under Biden and the managing co-chair of America is All In, vowed in a statement Wednesday to continue that fight.

“‘No matter what Trump may say,’ she said, ‘the shift to clean energy is unstoppable and our country is not turning back.’

“If Trump pulls the United States from the Paris agreement, it will deal a symbolic blow to the international efforts, given America’s place as the largest historical emitter of planet-warming pollution. Under Biden, the United States has produced record amounts of oil, but it had also positioned itself as a climate leader. Last year, minutes after nations agreed to a historic pledge to transition away from fossil fuels, then-climate envoy John F. Kerry addressed delegates, touting a moment of ‘multilateralism’ and unity, and expressing a sense of ‘awe.’ His remarks drew loud applause.

“Collins Nzovu, who served until recently as Zambia’s green economy and environment minister, said in a recent interview that the global climate process is less credible if the ‘superpower is not at the table for discussing an existential threat.’

“Poorer countries are…depending on the United States to help finance plans that are essential to the world’s climate goals.

“‘No mitigation efforts can work without America at the table,’ Nzovu said.”

Experts discuss the problem

Jenni Doering, Steve Curwood, and their colleagues at Inside Climate News also consider what climate and environmental policies will look like in Trump’s second administration (https://insideclimatenews.org/news/09112024/climate-and-environmental-policies-during-second-Trump-administration). Here are excerpts from the article, which features a discussion among well-informed analysts.

From our collaborating partner Living on Earth, public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by Jenni Doering and Steve Curwood with Inside Climate News’s Washington bureau chief Marianne Lavelle and executive editor Vernon Loeb, about what the election of Donald Trump may mean for the environment.

STEVE CURWOOD: What’s your view of how the world is going to look at us now that we have chosen a leader who denies climate change when we’ve been seeing temperatures going up and storms and such are getting worse and worse?

VERNON LOEB: Well, I think the world has seen this before. When Trump was in office the first time, one of the first things he did was take the country out of the Paris Agreement. Clearly, the world is expecting he’ll do that again.

Climate action didn’t stop when he did that the first time. It won’t stop this time. But I think clearly, world leaders feel like progress on climate is going to be a lot harder to achieve with Trump in office and with the U.S. out of the official agreement. It’s not a good moment for the climate. I don’t think progress is going to grind to a halt, but it’s not a good moment.

LAVELLE: President-elect Trump has made clear that he is going to roll back the regulations that are meant to nudge the auto industry toward electric vehicles over the next decade. He says he is going to repeal that on day one, and that is going to make a big difference.

My colleague Dan Gearino and I have been working all year on writing about the politics of electric vehicles, and one of the analysts we’ve talked to says that there is going to be 40 percent less demand for EV batteries and EV technology under a Trump administration than there would have been under a Harris administration. Those kinds of changes in policy are bound to make a huge difference in how quickly we make the transition—that’s already going on all over the world—to electric vehicles.

LOEB: There’s a long description in Project 2025 about how the EPA’s enforcement capability should be pulled way back. And instead, the agency should move to something called “compliance assistance,” which is working more closely with corporations.

Project 2025 also talks about dismantling NOAA, which is the National Weather Service—the agency that tracks hurricanes—and the National Hurricane Center. Project 2025 even calls for the repeal of the EPA efficiency ratings for appliances, the Energy Star efficiency ratings. So Project 2025 could be a real disaster for environmental protection, if it is indeed the Trump blueprint.

LAVELLE: One of the things Project 2025 says to do is to eliminate EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice. It definitely is in the sights of the team around Trump to really redirect this initiative to address environmental justice.

One thing I noticed is that House Republicans this week put out a report on environmental justice grants by the Biden administration, and they’re very critical of those grants because they’re going to groups that, for example, oppose the natural gas export terminals on the Gulf Coast. What this report does is kind of gives a blueprint for the incoming Trump administration on what grants to withdraw, and also kind of a basis for withdrawing the program altogether. That report came out very much with an awareness that Trump is coming into the White House with an eye to cutting back the support for these communities that are overburdened with pollution, and have been for a long time.

DOERING: What do you think is going to happen now that the Trump administration is coming back in and has 20-something natural gas projects which it can potentially give the green light to?

LOEB: The Biden administration put a hold on those projects as it considered the climate implications. My hunch is that that will be one of the first things Trump does away with and basically gives those plants the green light as part of his energy dominance, “drill, baby, drill” approach. Of all the industries, none has fared better under Trump than the fossil fuel industry. I would expect a real explosion of LNG exports over the next four years under Trump, too.

DOERING: Remind us why are climate activists so concerned about those terminals?

LOEB: The terminals just lead to more fracking. We’re already the leading oil and gas nation in the world, and if we can continue to frack and start exporting our natural gas as liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe, which is still somewhat smarting from the loss of Russian natural gas, it just means more fracking. And when you’ve got more fracking, you’ve got more air pollution, more greenhouse gas emissions, more produced water piling up with no place to dispose of it. LNG exports means more fracking across the nation.

CURWOOD: I’ve seen some research that says that the actual carbon footprint of exported natural gas can even exceed that of burning coal.

LAVELLE: As somebody who’s been writing about this for a long time, I usually focus on the stories I’m telling and what I’m working on, not looking out at the big picture that much. This forces you to look at the big picture. And anyone who has young people in their lives, you think, what kind of world are we leaving for them? The way I deal with it is just focus on the importance of the work we’re doing, trying to explain the science and tell people really that there are things that can be done to address climate change, and we know what they are, and it’s going to take all of us to do something about it.

CURWOOD: Talk to me about what some people call the glimmer of hope: the states and localities.

LOEB: Voters in Washington firmly rejected a measure on the ballot that would have overturned the state’s signature climate law. In California, the voters approved a $10 billion bond fund for projects that focus on resiliency and coastal adaptation and response to floods and wildfires. And similarly, in Honolulu, voters also approved a climate resiliency fund there. So kind of a mixed result, right?

While the national vote was going for Trump, who’s someone who’s sort of avowedly almost a climate denier, you’ve got majorities in these states clearly voting for climate change measures to fund things like adaptation and resiliency.

Concluding thoughts

The Trump/Republicans win in a blow-out “red” wave defeat of Democrats in the recent elections. At the same time, some Americans will continue their struggles to combat the sources of the problem, namely, fossil fuel companies and their economic and political allies, including Trump and the Republican Party.

Members of the World Resources Institute contend that “all hope is not lost” (https://wri.org/insights/trump-climate-action-setbacks-opportunities-us). The authors, Cristina DeConcina, Jennifer Rennicki, and Gabby Hyman, identify “several pathways remain to keep momentum for climate action alive.”

“For one, there are bipartisan climate-friendly opportunities to seize, such as continued clean energy development, which has already delivered tremendous economic benefits in both red and blue states. There is also support from both sides of the aisle for next-generation geothermal energy and from the business community for decarbonizing heavy industries and strengthening international supply chains to ensure U.S. competitiveness and security. These initiatives would bolster U.S. manufacturing and national security, while also benefitting the climate.

DeConcina and her colleagues continue.

“In addition, subnational actors like states, cities, businesses and tribal nations boldly stepped up during Trump’s first term in office. They can — and early signs show they will — take up the mantle of leadership again in the climate fight.
Some of the major opportunities include:

“When President Trump announced in 2017 that the United States would withdraw from the Paris Agreement, American communities, states, tribal nations and business leaders quickly coalesced to form America Is All In. More than 4,000 mayors, governors, university presidents and business leaders signed the We Are Still In declaration, committing to meet the emissions-reduction targets set in the Paris Agreement and continue engaging with the international community. The 2019 Accelerating America’s Pledge report found that bottom-up leadership from states, cities, businesses and other subnational actors would reduce U.S. emissions by up to 37% by 2030, even without federal intervention.

“And since the first Trump administration, subnational climate action initiatives have only grown in strength and commitment. Managing Co-Chair of America Is All In and former EPA administrator Gina McCarthy said recently, ‘No matter what Trump may say, the shift to clean energy is unstoppable, and our country is not turning back.’”

“Many states have enacted ambitious climate policies. For example, the 24 states and territories that comprise the bipartisan U.S. Climate Alliance, representing 54% of the U.S. population and 57% of the U.S. economy, have committed to achieving net-zero emissions no later than 2050.

“Some states are poised for even greater action before Trump takes office. In California, voters overwhelming approved Proposition 4, a $10 billion bond measure that will help the state prepare for the impacts of climate change. Just after the election, California’s Governor Newsom announced a special session of the state legislature to take steps “to safeguard California values”— including the fight against climate change — ahead Trump’s second term. A day later, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) approved updates to the state’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS), designed to accelerate the development of cleaner fuels and zero-emission infrastructure to help the state meet legislatively mandated air quality and climate targets.

“At the same time, voters in Washington state upheld a new law that forces companies to cut carbon emissions while raising billions to support programs such as habitat restoration and climate preparation. Maryland’s Governor Moore issued a wide-ranging executive order earlier this year directing state agencies to develop climate implementation plans to ensure the state could continue working towards its ambitious climate change targets, which aim for net-zero carbon by 2045.

“In parallel, cities have long played a crucial role in advancing climate policies and will continue to do so. Climate Mayors, which started as a network of 30 mayors in 2017, is now a bipartisan network of nearly 350 U.S. mayors driving climate action in their communities. These cities continue investing in public transportation, green infrastructure and local emissions-reduction initiatives — all of which will continue to mitigate the impacts of climate change and build more sustainable urban environments with or without federal action on climate.”