The Trump presidency beginning at the start of 2025 is set to bring around drastic changes in all departments, but a lot of the worries lie around the issue of climate change, and the Environment Protection Agency (EPA). It is safe to say President Trump did the environment zero favours in his first term, but with Trump being supposedly more organised than ever, who knows the levels of damage that are going to be afflicted?
Trump’s first term’s environmental policies represented a shift from the staunchly proenvironment government of Barack Obama. Trump turned his back on the government programmes to reduce carbon emissions through the use of renewable energy sources in favour of fossil fuels. Soon after taking office, Trump signed two executive orders to bring forward the use of two oil pipelines. In addition to this, the Department of the Interior announced plans to permit drilling in almost all of the water owned by the United States.
The Trump administration was certainly not on the side of the scientists either. Trump and his associates did not believe that carbon dioxide was the lead cause of climate change, and that it was all a big hoax. This led to the catastrophic decision for the US to leave the Paris Climate Accords, damaging its reputation until it rejoined under the Biden–Harris administration.
Trump did some serious damage to the environment in his first term, with a 2018 study by David Cutler and Francesca Dominici suggesting Trump’s policies would “cost the lives of over 80,000 Americans every decade, and lead to respiratory problems for millions of people”. In many of his rallies, he made the claim that he wants “the cleanest air and the cleanest water”. (Read in his voice, please.)
But what is actually going to happen during the second Trump term? The slow-turning wheels of American bureaucracy slowed Trump down last time, but this time round he plans to gut the civil service and fill it with climate denialists and fossil fuel enthusiasts. He has pledged to dismantle the policies of the Biden administration that do not directly benefit the fossil fuel industry and to heavily increase the production of oil and gas in the country, proclaiming that this is the solution to lowering energy prices for working Americans.
Experts have extensively criticised his plans, alluding to the fact that oil prices are set on the global market, which the president has little influence over. Many climate scientists are concerned with the plans that are outlined in the conservative proposal Project 2025, which promises to produce 2.7 billiottonnes in extra carbon dioxide emissions above the current trajectory for 2030. The current frontrunner to head the EPA under president Trump is former lobbyist and lawyer for fossil fuel firms, Andrew Wheeler, making it safe to say the issue of climate action isn’t going to be high on the agenda for the Trump administration.