It’s 80 degrees in the middle of November.
We are in a climate crisis, and with Donald Trump as our incoming president, I’m worried. After his term as the 45th president, it is fair to wonder if he will actually help us this time.
Spoiler alert: He won’t.
Across the globe, we are experiencing shifting weather patterns, rising sea levels and rising temperatures. On July 22, 2024, we experienced the hottest day ever recorded, beating 2023’s record. According to the United Nations, if global warming continues we will experience an increase of extreme weather and food and water insecurity.
The actions taken by Trump’s first administration on climate change show exactly how ineffective he would be.
During his first term, Trump and his administration proposed legislation to roll back over 100 environmental protections, including rules regarding air and water pollution and drilling and extraction, according to Climate Power.
In 2020, Trump also pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement, an international treaty that legally binds nations to substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions with the ultimate goal of limiting global temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
While other countries such as China, Japan and South Korea pledged to reach carbon-zero, Trump treated the pact as a job killer, arguing that millions of dollars and jobs would be lost, showing where he truly placed his priorities.
Additionally, the Trump administration replaced Obama’s Clean Power Plan with the Affordable Clean Energy Rule. The CPP provides an incentive for states to move away from coal plants, while the ACE rule aims to keep coal plants operating, but at an increased efficiency. This new rule was less regulated, and IOPScience found that it would cause 28% of model coal plants to produce more CO2 by 2030 in comparison to a scenario with no policy in place. The U.S. Court of Appeals struck down the ACE rule on Trump’s last day of presidency in 2021.
During his most recent reelection campaign, Trump once again pushed dropping out of the Paris agreement, which Joe Biden rejoined on his first day of presidency in 2021.
According to Agenda47, Trump’s campaign website, his goal is to have the “#1 lowest cost of energy and electricity on Earth.” To accomplish this, Trump plans to “DRILL, BABY, DRILL” in the Marcellus Shale, hoping to source all of American energy demands with domestic production, rather than importing from other countries. The Marcellus Shale is estimated to be the second-largest natural gas field in the world, covering many northeastern states, including Pennsylvania.
According to Factcheck.org, using domestic energy will reduce prices overall and put downward pressure on global prices, but it will not help prevent climate change.
The EPA has previously found that the fracking used to extract natural gas can potentially impact drinking water resources. The extraction of gas can also pollute the air with methane, a dangerous greenhouse gas, according to the Center for Biological Diversity.
Trump also opposes clean energy initiatives, including wind energy, because of its cost. In a 2023 rally in New Hampshire, he claimed that windmills cost 42 times more than natural gas. However, according to a 2022 study by the International Renewable Energy Association, the cost of electricity over a power-producing asset’s lifetime was 52% lower than the cheapest fossil fuel solutions.
Trump’s new proposed nominee for head of the EPA, Lee Zeldin, is a former New York congressman who ran for governor in 2022, losing to Kathy Hochul. In his campaign, he said he would reverse New York’s ban on fracking and approve new pipelines as a way to create jobs and make money. After being announced as Trump’s pick for EPA administrator, Zeldin took to X to post saying, “We will restore US energy dominance.”
Trump also announced Chris Wright as his pick to lead the Department of Energy. Wright is the CEO of Liberty Energy, a major North American fracking company.
Trump is packing his cabinet with people who will help him roll back even more environmental protections. His new administration won’t help save Americans from global warming, something he doesn’t even believe exists. Rather than focusing on taking protections away, Trump and his new administration should seriously consider why these protections were put in place and work towards preserving them.