Where will Trump's war on climate protections take the world?https://en.majalla.com/node/324847/science-technology/where-will-trumps-war-climate-protections-take-world
Where will Trump's war on climate protections take the world?
Picking up where he left off in his first term in office, the US president is machine-gunning the legislation, funding, and personnel aimed at tackling the planet’s most existential threat
Reuters
A climate change activist takes part in a protest against the impact of US policy on climate change before the inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump outside the US embassy in London.
Where will Trump's war on climate protections take the world?
In July 1977, a few months after Jimmy Carter became US president, he received a memo from Frank Press, his chief scientific adviser, warning of the climate crisis and the dangers of carbon dioxide emissions. That memo, based on rigorous scientific studies, served as an early warning for a phenomenon that would worsen over the decades.
Despite Carter’s symbolic commitment to the environment—exemplified by the installation of solar panels on the White House roof—then-Energy Secretary James Schlesinger advised against rushing into radical political action. This delayed a serious response to the crisis.
Today, more than four decades later, the climate crisis has intensified, but the political will to address that has dissipated. Returning to the White House this year, Donald Trump’s team said in March that it would reconsider the US government’s official endangerment finding from 2009 that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide are harmful to public health. What now for America and the climate crisis?
In December 2015, almost every country in the world signed up to the Paris Agreement, a legally binding treaty, the overarching goal of which is to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” and pursue efforts “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.” Two years later, Donald Trump entered the White House for the first time.
Trump's team will reconsider the 2009 US finding that greenhouse gases are harmful to public health
Climate pledges ditched
Having called the climate crisis a "hoax", he withdrew the US from the Paris Agreement, scrapped more than 125 environmental regulations, repealed his predecessor Barack Obama's Climate Action Plan (which aimed to reduce US carbon emissions), moved to dismantle the Clean Power Plan (which aimed to cut emissions from power plants), eased car emissions standards, reduced protections for public lands, weakened air and water quality laws, and appointed climate change deniers to key positions.
Trump chose Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Pruitt worked to limit the agency's regulatory powers and weaken environmental laws. Instead of promoting renewable energy, Trump sought to revive the declining coal industry by proposing financial guarantees for coal-fired power plants. Pruitt famously declared that "the war on coal is over".
Trump also appointed Rick Perry as energy secretary, despite Perry having called for the US Department of Energy to be abolished. Kathleen Hartnett White, another climate change denier, was nominated to chair the Council on Environmental Quality.
Furthermore, Trump slashed the EPA budget, eliminated funding for the Green Climate Fund (which helped developing nations adapt to climate change), and withdrew US funding for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Nobel Prize-winning body responsible for assessing scientific research and building global consensus on climate issues.
According to a report by Lancet Countdown, which uses scientific data on climate change to inform healthcare decisions, these environmental rollbacks contributed to more than 22,000 additional deaths in 2019 alone due to worsening US air quality. Likewise, a research team at Rhodium Group estimated in 2020 that Trump's actions would lead to an increase of 1.8 gigatons in US carbon emissions by 2035.
Biden looks at a mock-up of a semiconductor facility, before he speaks on "how the CHIPS and Science Act and his Investing in America agenda are growing the economy and creating jobs in Syracuse, New York, on April 25, 2024.
Reversals reversed
Trump lost the 2020 election, and his successor, Joe Biden, prioritised climate action. He passed some landmark legislation, including the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (2021), the CHIPS and Science Act (2022), and the Inflation Reduction Act (2022). These collectively mobilised federal investments, loans, and tax incentives to tackle climate change. Investment bank Goldman Sachs estimated that the Inflation Reduction Act alone would provide $1.2tn in federal benefits by 2032, catalysing up to $2.9tn in cumulative investments over the next decade and nearly $11tn by 2050.
Yet Trump won again in 2024 and has already set fire to many of America's environmental protections enacted by Biden. Symbolic of his approach was the US EPA being placed under the administration of Lee Zeldin, a lawyer and Trump ally who defended him against impeachment proceedings in 2019.
Zeldin, who has halted $20bn in grants designed to address the climate crisis, rails against an environmental agenda "that throttles our industries, our mobility, and our consumer choice while benefiting adversaries overseas". He also boasts that "we are driving a dagger through the heart of climate-change religion and ushering in America's Golden Age".
In January, just days before Trump took office, California suffered devastating wildfires fuelled by the intensifying effects of global warming. Losses have been estimated at $250-275bn. This followed a record-breaking year, with 2024 officially the hottest on record, with global temperatures reaching 1.55°C above pre-industrial levels, according to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).
The Emissions Gap Report 2024 warned that global temperatures are projected to rise between 2.6-3.1°C by the end of this century—far exceeding the Paris Agreement's goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels by 2030. Yet at the end of January, he signed an executive order beginning the process of withdrawing from the Paris Agreement (effective from January 2026). In February, he forbade US and NASA scientists from attending a major UN climate assessment meeting in China.
$20bn in grants designed to address the climate crisis have been halted
Politics vs Science
Will Trump's policies reverse the global shift toward clean energy, or have market forces and technology progressed to the point that render policy changes pointless? The battle is between populist politics and climate science, and it will decide the future health (or otherwise) of the planet.
Advances in technology, a drop in the cost of renewable energy, and growing public awareness give activists hope. Some US states, such as California, want to press ahead with their clean energy transition programmes regardless of Trump's executive orders. Texas—historically an oil-rich Republican state—recently surpassed California in installed solar capacity, highlighting the strength of market forces over federal policy. Renewable energy is projected to grow by around 9% annually for several decades.
Yet, while general trends may continue, the potential consequences of his policies are substantial. Analysis by Carbon Brief found that Trump's re-election could result in an additional 4 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions from the US by 2030.
Trump dismisses such reports. He dismissed a 2018 report from his own administration that warned of the catastrophic economic and environmental consequences of climate change, saying: "I don't believe it." Those who share his view often latch onto the concept of scientific uncertainty, which refers to the inherent doubt in research findings.
This uncertainty is relative, as scientists rely on statistical analyses and repeated studies to increase confidence in their results. Manipulating or questioning the degree of scientific certainty can have serious consequences.
Firefighters work to extinguish a fire in the city of Odemira, Portugal, August 7, 2023.
Interests and influence
A study published in Global Environmental Change in July 2015 suggested that private and political interests foster scepticism and amplify scientific uncertainty.
Prof. Stefan Lewandowsky at the University of Bristol, who led the study, said: "The ongoing challenge from climate change deniers has made climate scientists more cautious in many respects. These are subtle effects, and I'm pretty sure most scientists don't even realise it." He warned that even a small influence from climate change deniers could slow public recognition of the scientific consensus.
Since Trump took office, he said: "The pressure on scientists has intensified, extending beyond mere scepticism to outright censorship and government interference in the scientific process. There is very little scientists can do to resist the influence of a hostile government, so I am deeply concerned about the future of research in the US, especially in areas like climate change that challenge powerful economic interests."
Those interested will note how Trump has already reversed environmental policies and cancelled several projects, such as installing solar panels in low-income areas, promoting energy efficiency in homes, and protecting communities from extreme heat, floods, and wildfires. These cuts align with Trump's broader plan to reduce government spending, but they also reflect his stance against climate action.
Additionally, Trump issued an order to repeal Biden's 2021 international climate finance plan, and at the end of February, almost 900 workers were fired at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a leading agency in global climate monitoring. The White House has ordered an assessment of NOAA's greenhouse gas research grants, meaning both funding and personnel are targets.
The US plays a vital role in monitoring and tracking climate developments through its advanced satellite technology and other scientific capabilities, so NOAA cuts could hinder global efforts to address climate change. Not that Trump will care. In his 2024 presidential campaign, he promised to "drill, baby, drill". He wants to expand fossil fuel extraction, just as the rest of the world moves towards renewable energy.
Trump's re-election could result in an additional 4 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions from the US by 2030
Carbon Brief analysis
Clear hostility
Although Trump has shown clear hostility toward climate policies, constitutional, political, and regulatory constraints limit his ability to fully dismantle them. The US federal system operates on a complex system of checks and balances, which restricts the president's power to unilaterally implement his agenda.
During his first term, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission unanimously rejected Perry's proposed subsidies for coal-fired power plants. Its members, including those appointed by Trump, argued that it would distort the energy market. Dismantling Obama's Clean Power Plan also proved lengthy and complex, taking two years, while Congress—despite being controlled by Republicans—approved only a modest 1% reduction in the EPA's budget instead of the drastic cuts Trump sought.
Despite these institutional barriers, Trump's influence lies in how his policies exacerbate existing global trends that hinder efforts to combat climate change. Globally, targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions remain insufficient, and Trump's policies only deepen the crisis by reducing federal support for emissions reduction efforts, cutting funding for climate adaptation and mitigation projects, withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, and halting international climate funding.
The rise of conservative populism and nationalism around the world has been fuelled in part by Trump's anti-globalisation rhetoric and climate scepticism. This further erodes global support for climate action. Meanwhile, under Trump's leadership, the US is driving a surge in oil and gas production, obstructing the transition to a low-carbon economy when urgent climate action is most needed.
