Donald J. Trump will be President of the United States again.
The Associated Press called the race for Trump early Wednesday morning, ending one of the most expensive and tumultuous campaign cycles in the nation’s history. The results promise to improve US climate policy: In addition to return a climate denier to the White House, voters also gave Republicans control of the Senate, laying the groundwork for attacks on everything from electric vehicles to clean energy funding and bolstering support for the fossil fuel industry.
“We have more liquid gold than any country in the world,” Trump said during his victory speechwith reference to domestic oil and gas potential. The CEO of the American Petroleum Institute issued a statement saying that “energy was on the ballot, and voters sent a clear signal that they want choices, not mandates.”
The election results sent climate policy experts and environmental advocates into a frenzy. The president-elect has called climate change “a hoax” and pledged during his most recent campaign to expand fossil fuel production, roll back environmental regulations and eliminate federal support for clean energy. He also said he would kill the Inflationary Reduction Act, or IRA, which is the largest investment in climate action in US history and a landmark legislative victory for the Biden administration. Such steps would add billions of additional tons greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and accelerate the looming impacts of climate change.
“It’s a dark day,” said Ben Jealous, the executive director of the Sierra Club in a statement. “Donald Trump was a disaster for climate progress during his first term, and everything he’s said and done since suggests he’s eager to do even more damage this time around.”
During his first term in office, Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement, the 2016 international climate accord that guides the actions of more than 195 countries; 100 plus environment rules rolled back; and opened the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling. While President Joe Biden reversed many of these actions and made the fight against climate change a centerpiece of his presidency, Trump has pledged to undo those efforts during his second term with possible enormous implications – climate analysts at Carbon Brief have predicted that four more years of Trump will result in the country emitting an additional 4 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide than it would under his opponent. This is on a par with the combined annual emissions of the European Union and Japan.
One of President-elect Trump’s primary targets will be to roll back the IRA, which is poised to funnel more than a trillion dollars into climate-friendly initiatives. Two years into that decade-long effort, money is flowing into numerous initiatives, ranging from expanding the nation’s electric vehicle charging network to helping people go solar and weatherize their homes. In 2023 alone, about 3.4 million Americans claimed more $8 billion in tax credits the law provides for home energy improvements. But Trump could stall, freeze or even eliminate much of the law.
“We will revoke all unspent funds,” Trump assured the audience in a September speech at the Economic Club of New York. Last month he said it would “an honor” to “immediately end” a law he called the “Green New Scam”.
However, such a move would require congressional support. While many House races remain too close to call, Republicans have taken control of the Senate. That said, any attempt to roll back the IRA could be unpopular because as much as $165 billion in the funding it provides flows to Republican districts.
Still, Trump could take unilateral steps to slow spending, and use federal regulatory powers to further impede the rollout process. As Axios noted, “If Trump wants to shut down the IRA tap, he’ll probably find ways to do it.” Looking beyond that important climate law, Trump has plenty of other levers he could pull that would also adversely affect the environment — efforts that would be easier with a conservative Supreme Court that has already undermined federal climate action.
Trump has also thrown his support behind expanded fossil fuel production. He has long insisted that the country “drill, baby, drill” and in April offered industry executives tax and regulatory favors in exchange for $1 billion in campaign support. Although that astronomical sum never materialized, The New York Times found that oil and gas interests donated estimated at $75 million to Trump’s campaign, the Republican National Committee and affiliated committees. Fossil fuels have already boomed under Biden, with domestic oil production higher than ever, and Vice President Kamala Harris has said she would continue producing them if she wins. But Trump could give the industry a significant boost by e.g. reopening more of the Arctic to drilling.
Any climate chaos that Trump sows is certainly going to extend beyond the United States. The president-elect could try to abandon the Paris accord again, undermining global efforts to address the crisis. His threat to use tariffs to protect American companies and restore American manufacturing could jolt energy markets. For example, the vast majority of solar panels and batteries for electric vehicles are made overseas and the prices of those imports, as well as other clean energy technology, can skyrocket. American liquefied natural gas producers are worried about that retaliatory tariffs could hamper their business.
The Trump administration could also take quieter steps to shape climate policy from further afield separate federal research functions from their rulemaking abilities to guidance on how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studies and responds to health care.
Trump is sure to wreak havoc on federal agencies central to understanding and combating climate change. During his first term, his administration funding for research exhaustedappointed climate skeptics and industry insiders, and several scientific advisory committees were eliminated. This too censored scientific data on government websites and try undermine the findings of the National Climate Assessment, the government’s scientific report on the risks and impacts of climate change on the country. Project 2025, the comprehensive blueprint developed by conservative groups and former Trump administration officials, are promoting a similar strategy, deprioritizing climate science and perhaps restructuring or eliminating federal agencies that promote it.
“The nation and world can expect the incoming Trump administration to take a wrecking ball to global climate diplomacy,” Rachel Cleetusthe policy director and chief economist for the Climate and Energy Program at the Union for Concerned Scientists, said in a statement. “The science of climate change is unforgiving, with every year of delay adding more costs and more irreversible changes, and everyday people pay the highest price.”
The president-elect’s supporters seem eager to get to work.
Mandy Gunasekara, a former Environmental Protection Agency chief of staff during Trump’s first term, told CNN before the election that this second administration would be much more willing to implement its agenda, and act quickly. One likely early target will be the Biden era tailpipe emission rules which Trump derided as a “mandate” for electric vehicles.
During his first term, Trump similarly sought to weaken Obama-era exhaust regulations. But the auto industry made the point when it sidestepped the federal government and directly made an agreement with statesa move indicative of the approach environmentalists may take during his second term. Even before the election, climate advocates began preparing for the possibility of a second Trump presidency and the nation abandoning the global diplomatic stage on this issue. Bloomberg reports that officials and former diplomats have engaged in secret talks, crisis simulations and “political war games” aimed at maximizing climate progress under Trump – an effort sure to begin when COP29 kicks off next week in Baku, Azerbaijan.
“The outcome of this election will be seen as a major blow to global climate action,” Christiana Figueres, the United Nations’ climate chief from 2010 to 2016, said in a statement. “[But] there is an antidote to doom and despair. This is action on the ground, and it is happening in all corners of the earth.
