Walking away from treaties. Redrawing the boundaries of national monuments. Repealing pollution regulations.
As Coral Davenport and Lisa Friedman reported, when Donald Trump returns to the White House next month, he is expected to unleash a series of executive actions and other moves that will radically overhaul America’s approach to energy, the environment and climate.
Some of the moves have been well telegraphed. Trump intends to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord, as he did during his first term. He is also likely to open up lands in the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments to drilling and mining. And he is planning to repeal parts of the Inflation Reduction Act that benefit electric vehicles.
Other potentially disruptive moves have been floated but not formalized. Trump is likely to hollow out the Environmental Protection Agency, possibly moving its headquarters out of Washington. The incoming administration is also expected to end the Biden administration’s pause on issuing permits for new liquefied natural gas export terminals.
Trump is able to make all of these changes because, in a government designed to have checks and balances, modern-day presidents have an unusual amount of autonomy to shape climate and energy policy.
This is partly because it’s been nearly 35 years since Congress has passed a substantial, comprehensive environmental law. While the Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law by President Biden in 2022, was the largest-ever federal law aimed at addressing climate change, it did not set any emissions standards or define a national strategy for addressing climate change.
Instead, the 1990 reauthorization of the Clean Air Act, a bipartisan effort signed into law by the first President George Bush, was the last time Congress established guidelines for any number of pollution regulations, leaving federal guidelines behind the times.
“That has created opportunities for presidents, especially when you have a shift in control of executive branch and a shift in parties, to make fairly substantial changes on the fly,” said Barry Rabe, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan who has studied executive actions and environmental issues.
During Trump’s first term, he used executive actions to undo much of President Barack Obama’s climate work. President Biden then followed suit, using executive actions to reinstate some Obama policies.
This tit-for-tat exchange has left the United States with a scattershot approach to climate policy during a decade when the effects of global warming have become increasingly clear.
“It is hard to build an enduring or durable set of policies through executive action,” Rabe said. “But it is quite possible to reverse or delay actions taken by your immediate predecessor.”
Whiplash
Beyond pulling out of the Paris accord and overhauling the E.P.A., there are other ways Trump could reshape climate policy that have received less attention.
He could withdraw the United States from a global pact to reduce methane emissions that the Biden administration helped establish in 2021. It’s also possible that, if Trump makes good on his threats to impose tariffs on European goods, European countries could respond by using the bloc’s nascent carbon pricing system to impose a tax on U.S. imports starting in 2026.
Taken together, the flurry of Trump moves will very likely bring about head-spinning changes. A federal government that, for the past four years has sought to promote clean energy, reduce emissions and gradually limit the expansion of fossil fuels will, starting next month, be doing precisely the opposite.
Some of these moves may prove politically beneficially to Trump, who has pledged to halve energy costs within 18 months of taking office.
“Steps that could immediately keep prices of oil and gas and electricity as low as possible as soon as possible are certainly attractive politically,” Rabe said.
It is also a fact that these actions will exert a steep toll on the environment. As Trump rolls back regulations and promotes fossil fuels, it is an inevitability that planet-warming emissions will rise, making the planet even hotter.
The new cabinet
Trump is setting the agenda, but he will be relying on a cabinet full of loyalists to execute many of his plans. Lee Zeldin, a former congressman, is set to lead the E.P.A.; Doug Burgum, the North Dakota governor who has close ties to the fossil fuel industry, is Trump’s pick to lead the Interior Department; and Chris Wright, a fracking executive, is Trump’s pick to lead the Energy Department.
These and other Trump nominees and appointees will be responsible for making good on the incoming president’s promises to promote fossil fuels and walk back efforts to combat climate change.
They will also face pressure to deliver on Trump’s campaign promise to halve energy costs. Presidents historically have limited sway over prices at the gas pump, and many experts say Trump’s target is simply unattainable.
“That’s going to be darn hard to deliver on, no matter how much additional production there is,” Rabe said. “Pulling these levers — to actually get more production, to increase exports, to keep prices down — is going to be a huge challenge for the administration, regardless of what it does on the climate policy front.”
What scientists learned from an extreme marine heat wave in California
They call it “the blob.”
A decade ago, sea surface temperatures in the Pacific shot up to 11 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than normal. A high pressure system parked over the ocean, and winds that churn up cold, nutrient-rich water from the depths died down. Stagnant, warm water spread across the Northeast Pacific in a marine heat wave that lasted for three years.
Under the surface, the food web broke down and ecosystems convulsed. Seabirds washed up on shore. The carcasses were knee-deep in places, impossible to miss.
Researchers are still untangling the threads of what happened, and they caution against drawing universal conclusions from a single regional event. But the blob fundamentally changed many scientists’ understanding of what climate change could do to life in the ocean. The disaster is one of our richest sources of information on what happens to marine life as the temperature rises. — Delger Erdenesanaa
More climate news:
Six months’ worth of rain fell in five days in parts of Malaysia, killing dozens of people and submerging homes, Reuters reports.
Thinking of reusing a plastic water bottle or fork? Scientists who spoke to The Washington Post said reusing single-use plastic could expose you to dangerous chemicals.
Vox examines why so many of the world’s energy models have underestimated demand from developing countries.
Thanks for being a subscriber.
Read past editions of the newsletter here.
If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Browse all of our subscriber-only newsletters here. And follow The New York Times on Instagram, Threads, Facebook and TikTok at @nytimes.
Reach us at [email protected]. We read every message, and reply to many!
The post Trump Will Have Enormous Power Over Climate Action. Here’s Why. appeared first on New York Times.
