During his first term in the White House, Donald Trump took the United States out of the Paris Agreement on climate change and rolled back environmental protections. Looking ahead to Trump’s second term, Felicia Ronnholm writes that Trump’s election campaign promises on the climate, and his cabinet nominees, show how his administration will likely prioritise expanding domestic oil and gas exploitation and once again discard climate policies and environmental protections.    

• This article is part of ‘The 2024 Elections’ series curated by Peter Finn (Kingston University). The series has explored the 2024 US elections at the state and national level. If you are interested in contributing to the series, contact Peter Finn (p.finn@kingston.ac.uk).

Donald Trump’s first presidential term was a disaster for the climate and public health. His policies increased emissions, premature deaths, and health problems. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimated that the Trump administration’s 2019 Affordable Clean Energy Rule would result in three percent more CO² emissions by 2030 (compared to 2005 levels) compared to Obama’s Clean Power Plan, as well as 1,630 additional premature deaths and 120,000 more asthma attacks annually by 2030. Trump also withdrew the US from the Paris Agreement; lifted bans on fossil fuel and gas exploration on public lands and in the nation’s coastal waters; and rolled back ninety-eight environmental rules, including climate regulations such as limits on CO² emissions from power plants and vehicles, and restrictions on methane flaring and venting from oil and gas production on public lands. Based on Trump’s campaign rhetoric, the policies in Project 2025, and Trump’s cabinet nominations, we can expect that his second term will present an even greater threat to the global climate and public health.

Trump’s climate campaign promises 

During his campaign, Trump made several promises concerning the climate. For instance, he stated that one of his first acts as President would be to ‘DRILL, BABY, DRILL’. Consequently, he likely intends to use his executive authority to roll back environmental rules, remove bans on oil and gas exploitation on public lands, eliminate President Biden’s temporary pause on pending approvals of liquified natural gas (LNG) exports, and (once again) withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement.

Trump has also promised to ‘rescind all unspent funds under the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act’ (IRA). As the IRA was passed by Congress, he cannot revoke it without a congressional vote, but he can delay the allocation of funds or pause the approval of pending applications (which are submitted by renewable energy and electric vehicle (EV) projects). Trump could also attempt to remove the IRA with the help of Congress but given that most of the IRA’s investments have gone to Republican-held districts, eighteen House Republicans have opposed the IRA’s elimination. However, Republicans could still agree to remove specific portions of the policy, such as EV-related incentives and tax credits. Trump expressed contempt toward EVs throughout his campaign and promised that he would put an end to the EV ‘mandate’ on his first day in office. But Elon Musk, who owns Tesla and therefore benefits from IRA incentives and tax credits, will likely oppose their removal.

Project 2025 

Project 2025 has been a major indicator of the new Trump administration’s priorities, given that at least 140 of its contributors worked in the first Trump administration and Trump implemented similar policies during his first term. The report calls for the elimination of several offices within the EPA such as the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assistance, as well as the removal of the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy within the Department of Energy. It also encourages the President to cancel climate reparation costs; end the calculation of the social cost of carbon in assessments and the use of energy efficiency standards; restructure the EPA’s science advisory boards to include more diverse views; and terminate the citation of environmental issues as reasons to avoid the implementation of energy projects (such as the Biden administration’s citation of climate change as a reason to temporarily pause the approval of new LNG export terminals).

What Trump’s nominations say about his climate policy approach 

Four of Trump’s nominations stand out where climate policy is concerned. Former New York US House Representative, Lee Zeldin, who has been nominated to lead the EPA, has advocated for fracking, approving new pipelines, and the exploitation of natural gas during his 2022 campaign for New York Governor. After his nomination, he reaffirmed his support for natural gas and asserted that his priority as EPA Administrator would be to roll back regulations that harm American businesses financially, restore the United States’ ‘energy dominance’, bring jobs back to the country, and make it the ‘global leader of AI’, none of which is within the role of the EPA Administrator.

“Climate Strike 2019 19 – Time Is Running” (CC BY 2.0) by Amaury Laporte

Trump has nominated Doug Burgum, Governor of North Dakota, as Secretary of the Interior and appointed him the leader of the new ‘National Energy Council’. In his speech at the Republican National Convention in July, Burgum affirmed his support for creating ‘American energy dominance’ and implied that Trump would achieve this by exploiting natural gas resources. However, Burgum has a major conflict of interest, given that he leases 200 acres of land to Continental Resources (one of the United States’ largest independent oil and gas producers) and has earned up to $50,000 in royalties from oil and gas wells operated by the company on his land since late 2022. As head of the National Energy Council, which will oversee the permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation, and transportation of all American energy sources, Burgum could develop policies or impact their implementation process to improve the value of his oil and gas leases as well as his royalty payments.

Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, also has ties to Continental Resources, as he and Burgum are both supported by Harold Hamm, the executive chairman and founder of Continental Resources and a long-term Trump donor. Wright is the founder, CEO, and chairman of Liberty Energy, a fracking and oil fields service company. He has claimed that ‘climate crisis, energy transition, carbon pollution, clean energy, and dirty energy’ are deceptive and alarmist marketing terms that ‘drive centrist politicians and regulators to oppose life-critical infrastructure like building pipelines and natural gas export terminals’. In a report by Liberty Energy, Wright also asserted that it is wrong to think that we can reverse climate change by transitioning to cleaner, cheaper, and greener energy, as this perception is ‘based on a combination of climate change exaggerations, a strict focus on CO², mitigation instead of climate adaptation, and a failure to appreciate the scale and complexity of the global energy system’.

Finally, Trump has nominated Florida Senator, Marco Rubio, as Secretary of State. Rubio, a former climate denier, will have major responsibilities concerning international climate policy negotiations. This includes the Paris Agreement (assuming Trump does not withdraw the US from the accord), which Rubio has referred to as ‘ridiculous’ and an agreement that is ‘more about [Obama] appeasing extreme activists and preserving his liberal legacy [than the environment]’. More recently, Rubio referred to climate change as ‘the Left’s catchall excuse for anything that goes wrong’. Moreover, he has a very poor environmental record, voting against 93 percent of all environmental policy proposals since he was elected as Florida Senator in 2011.

Increasing emissions while discarding climate policies

The new Trump administration will prioritise expanding domestic oil and gas exploitation. To achieve this, it will implement a pro-fossil fuel and gas/anti-renewable energy agenda and attempt to remove environmental protections, climate policies, energy efficiency standards, environmental risk assessment and emission reporting requirements, and bans on drilling on public lands. In doing so, it will increase emissions, put American lives in danger, and destroy parts of the United States’ natural heritage. But more disturbingly, it will escalate the climate crisis and threaten the very liveability of our planet.

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