Trump victory a ‘gut punch’ to US climate action

President-elect Donald Trump won a second term Wednesday morning after promising to unleash fossil fuel development, slash pollution regulations and dismantle President Joe Biden’s climate agenda.

Climate change was dwarfed by issues like the cost of living, immigration and the future of democracy during the campaign. But Trump's victory over Vice President Kamala Harris immediately cast doubt over the future of U.S. climate measures and raised questions about the country's commitment to cutting planet-warming pollution.

“This is obviously a difficult result to stomach for those of us who care about our democracy as well as healthy communities and a safe and livable planet for our children,” said Sam Ricketts, a prominent climate hawk and former aide to Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D). “There's no sugar-coating it: This is a gut punch.”

The stakes for the planet could hardly be higher. Scientists have warned that 2024 is almost certain to become the hottest year on record. Global ocean temperatures broke records for much of this year, helping fuel a devastating Atlantic hurricane season. Climate disasters have wreaked havoc worldwide in 2024, an indicator of the growing consequences of steadily rising temperatures.

A recent United Nations report warned that global climate action is moving too slowly — and that if world leaders don’t immediately and dramatically step up their efforts, there is "virtually no chance" of meeting the international target to limit temperature increases.

Trump, meanwhile, has pledged to once again pull the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement, a nonbinding pact to slash emissions that are driving up temperatures. His victory comes as international climate negotiators prepare to meet next week in Azerbaijan, where countries will hash out a new target for climate aid that some developing nations say should exceed $1 trillion annually.

Without U.S. contributions, other countries will be reluctant to step up funding, making deeper emissions cuts harder to achieve, diplomatic analysts say.

But Trump has often rejected the presence of climate change, or shrugged off its damaging effects on people and the environment.

"America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate," Trump said in a victory speech early Wednesday morning, vowing to increase the production of oil, which he called "liquid gold."

Domestically, Trump’s victory raised immediate questions about the future of the landmark climate legislation signed by Biden. Trump has pledged to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, which funnels hundreds of billions of dollars into greening the economy. He will be bolstered by a Republican majority in the Senate after the GOP picked up seats in Montana, Ohio and West Virginia. Republicans also had narrow leads in Senate contests in Michigan and Pennsylvania. Control of the House of Representatives remained up for grabs as of 6 a.m. Wednesday.

Analysts were split about what Trump’s election will mean for the climate law. Some noted growing support among congressional Republicans, who have seen federal dollars flow to factories that make electric vehicles, solar panels and batteries in their districts and states. Clean energy has received bipartisan support in the infrastructure law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Energy Act of 2020, said Frank Maisano, a senior principal at Bracewell, a lobbying firm.

“This and infrastructure happened to be one of the areas where Republicans can find common ground,” Maisano said.

Others were skeptical.

“It’s one thing to say you don’t want these tax credits repealed. That’s a good start,” said Adrian Deveny, who helped write the Inflation Reduction Act when she worked for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). “It’s another thing to vote no on a [future] tax package put forward by the president.”

Observers expect Trump to follow a pattern from his first term, when he appointed well-known climate deniers to top roles at agencies responsible for climate research, including EPA, the Energy Department, NOAA and NASA.

Trump’s budget proposals sought deep cuts to climate science initiatives, from NASA Earth science satellite missions to EPA research and development. While Congress blocked many of the cuts, hundreds of federal scientists left the government during his administration, and some left the U.S. altogether.

At the Labor Department, Trump adopted a rule that made it harder for U.S. investment firms and employers to put workers’ retirement savings into investments with a focus on ESG, or environmental, social and governance, priorities. In 2023, Trump vowed in a campaign video to “ban” what he called “insidious” ESG investments and to protect Americans’ savings and investments from “woke financial scams.”

And Trump is expected to rescind a host of EPA environmental rules — including climate standards for power and petroleum producers — just as he did when he took over from former President Barack Obama in 2017.

'Climate fanaticism'

Trump’s victory means the Justice Department will likely notify federal courts that it does not intend to defend EPA rules for power plant carbon or oil and gas methane emissions against challenges from conservative states and industry. EPA will likely start the process of repealing and replacing the standards soon after Trump is inaugurated Jan. 20.

New rules might take years to complete, but they are likely to be looser than the Biden standards and to demand less of industry.

Trump’s administration is also likely to target the Securities and Exchange Commission’s controversial climate risk disclosure rule. The rule is on hold amid legal challenges from trade associations and conservative groups. But Trump’s victory means the SEC will come under Republican control — and could take a range of steps to ensure the rule never takes effect or is short-lived

Trump has continued to downplay the seriousness of climate change, recently referring to global warming as “one of the great scams of all time.”

Project 2025, a conservative policy template written by former Trump administration officials, calls for overhauling federal science agencies. It urges a new administration to “reshape” the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which coordinates federal research on climate and the environment and oversees the National Climate Assessment.

“The Biden Administration’s climate fanaticism will need a whole-of-government unwinding,” the plan says.

'Frack, frack, frack'

The oil and gas industry also stands to profit from the $75 million it invested in supporting Trump's candidacy. Loosening regulations on the industry was one of the few clear policy positions Trump espoused on the campaign trail.

“We will frack, frack, frack and drill, baby, drill,” Trump said at an October rally in Detroit, asserting that such efforts would slash energy costs and reduce inflation. Independent experts doubt that cutting red tape in the U.S. would have much impact on the prices of global commodities like oil and natural gas.

Trump and his supporters have vowed to roll back the wave of electrification that has swept through the auto industry. They’ve pledged to get rid of the Biden administration’s regulatory regime that’s intended to incentivize the manufacture and purchase of EVs — and to make broader cuts in spending for mass transit and other low-emission forms of transportation.

On the stump, Trump described Harris' support for EVs as a threat to U.S. jobs and an opening for China to dominate the U.S. car market.

“I've been against cars and car factories being taken out of Detroit and being taken out of our — manufacturing of automobiles being taken out of our system, out of our country,” Trump said in an Oct. 27 rally at New York's Madison Square Garden.

Analysts said the transition of the U.S. energy sector from one dominated by fossil fuels to carbon-free power sources is likely to continue — but at a much slower pace. That's largely because solar energy installations are cheaper to build in most U.S. markets than other energy technologies.

But the government support that helped drive down the cost of solar projects — and is cutting the price for wind power, geothermal energy and battery storage projects — is likely to diminish in a second Trump administration, especially if Republicans control both chambers of Congress. Subsidies for cleaning up existing industrial facilities and opening new low-emission manufacturing plants could also be on the chopping block as the White House looks for ways to offset an extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts for individuals and corporations.

The debates are playing out against the backdrop of an ever warming world. NASA has already concluded that this June, July and August amounted to the hottest summer humans have ever documented, with global temperatures hovering around 2.25 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the long-term average.

U.S. residents are already feeling the effects of a warming world. Extreme high temperatures have killed an estimated 815 U.S. workers between 1992 and 2017 and seriously injured 70,000 more, according to federal estimates.

The federal government is trying to improve heat safety. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration proposed in July a regulation to protect workers from extreme temperatures by requiring most employers provide them with water and time to rest and cool off during the work day.

Republicans swiftly criticized the proposal. House Natural Resources Chair Bruce Westerman of Arkansas called it “one of the most idiotic things they’ve ever done.”

Trump hasn’t mentioned the regulation himself but did make light of high temperatures during campaign events this summer. At one Las Vegas rally held outdoors in 100-degree heat, Trump joked that his supporters should drink more water.

“I don’t want anybody going on me. We need every voter,” he said. “I don’t care about you, I just want your vote."

Six people at that gathering were sent to a hospital for heat-related treatment, and 24 were treated on-site.

The Trump administration will pick up the pieces from a pair of historic hurricanes. Helene and Milton are likely to be two of the costliest U.S. disasters, with each estimated to have caused tens of billions of dollars in damages. Studies have suggested that the events were worsened by human-caused climate change.

The federal response to natural disasters has been proudly nonpartisan for decades. Trump has vowed a change, saying on the campaign trail that he would use disaster aid to reward supporters and punish opponents.

During his presidency, Trump withheld or delayed aid to California and Washington state after wildfires because of disputes with the states’ Democratic governors.

Although Trump has focused on Federal Emergency Management Agency aid, refusing to declare a disaster would block impacted communities from receiving billions of dollars from departments such as Housing and Urban Development and Transportation, and the Small Business Administration.

Trump also could resurrect a policy that FEMA proposed a month before he left office in 2021 to raise the amount of damage that a disaster must cause for a state to qualify for federal aid. The proposal, aimed at giving states more responsibility for disaster recovery, was opposed by many state and local officials.

Reporters Jean Chemnick, Avery Ellfeldt, Thomas Frank, Chelsea Harvey, Mike Lee, Sara Schonhardt, Scott Waldman, Ariel Wittenberg and Lesley Clark contributed.