Trump might not be able to cut as much “red tape” as he has said he will.
With the inauguration now upon us, President-elect Donald Trump has said he wants to waste no time in undoing the environmental “red tape” of the previous administration.
That includes stripping out environmental protections, putting a stop to clean energy projects, rolling back Biden’s landmark climate law – the Inflation Reduction Act – and drilling as much oil as the US has to offer from day one of his presidency.
It comes just after the country experienced its most costly and impactful 12 months of extreme weather in 90 years. The US has been hit with between $693 and $799 billion (€672 to 774 billion) in total damages and economic losses from extreme weather events in the last year, according to estimates from AccuWeather’s Global Weather Center.
Trump’s climate scepticism is likely to take its toll outside of the country’s borders too. Pulling the second biggest polluter in the world out of the Paris Agreement once again could bring questions to the commitment of others.
But will the Trump presidency be a complete nightmare for climate action and was the US really still in the climate fight to begin with?
Biden protects billions in clean energy grants
The Biden Administration has protected 84 per cent of roughly $96.7 billion (€93.7 billion) of clean energy grants from being clawed back by the next administration. These were created as part of the Inflation Reduction Act
They are “obligated” which means contracts between US agencies and recipients have already been signed. This money from the landmark climate law includes programmes to provide rebates to retrofit homes and appliances and to help co-ops produce more clean energy.
Some $38 billion (€36.6 billion) for the Environmental Protection Agency has been obligated – 100 per cent of the greenhouse gas reduction fund and around 94 per cent of its other Inflation Reduction Act programmes.
Another $11 billion (€10.6 billion) in funds has not yet been obligated but the outgoing administration hopes that, as it has already been publicly announced, there will be pressure to follow through with these commitments.
Much of the cash from the Inflation Reduction Act has already been distributed and – with a significant portion going to Republican states – Trump is likely to face some kickback if he attempts to repeal the law.
The global transition away from fossil fuels is now well underway – even more so than it was during Trump’s first presidency. In the words of UK Energy Secretary Ed Milliband, the move towards renewable energy is now “unstoppable” and no government can prevent it.
The US is already producing record amounts of oil and gas
Trump’s headline pledge to “drill, baby, drill” isn’t necessarily a change from the status quo. In 2023, the country broke oil production records, producing more crude oil than any country ever has before. Experts say preliminary figures indicate the US was on track to break this record again in 2024.
Responses to new projects have been less than enthusiastic too.
Interest in drilling the pristine Alaskan wilderness has also been almost non-existent. Republican lawmakers were sure that it would generate billions of dollars. Trump himself called it “the biggest find anywhere in the world, as big as Saudi Arabia”.
After drilling was banned in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) – a unique environment home to caribou and polar bears as well as land sacred to Indigenous communities – in 1980.
A 2017 tax bill signed into law by Trump in his first term opened it up for oil and gas production. Republicans passed legislation that required two lease sales in ANWR to be held by 2024.
They believed it would raise $2 billion (€1.9 billion) in royalties over 10 years.
But in the latest early January lease sale, no companies bid for the chance to drill in the ANWR. It is the second such auction for oil and gas leases in this pristine wilderness in four years that has flopped. Several major banks have refused to finance any projects in the refuge.
“The lack of interest from oil companies in development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge reflects what we and they have known all along – there are some places too special and sacred to put at risk with oil and gas drilling,” acting deputy secretary of the US Interior Department, Laura Daniel-Davis said in a statement.
She added that oil and gas companies were sitting on huge areas of land with undeveloped leases elsewhere. “We’d suggest that’s a prudent place to start, rather than engage further in speculative leasing in one of the most spectacular places in the world.”
Whether because of this “special and sacred” place, or the fact that the remote location, harsh conditions and lack of infrastructure make drilling in the ANWR difficult and expensive, it seems that this new “Saudi Arabia” is not quite the fossil fuel gold mine it might seem.
Other countries can step up to the plate
Tackling the climate crisis isn’t all about shifting to renewable energy and cutting fossil fuel production. By leaving the Paris Agreement, Trump will pull the world’s biggest historical contributor to climate change out of a pact that commits them to cut a fair share of emissions, keeping global warming below 1.5C and a whole host of other actions.
It is a problem for the entire world.
The absence of the superpower, however, could encourage other countries to take up the helm on climate action. At COP29 in Azerbaijan in November last year, UN climate chief Simon Stiell praised China for “leading by example” on investments in clean energy tech.
He said that a strong new national climate plan known as a nationally determined contribution, or NDC, would “send an important signal to other countries that stronger targets drive investment, that courageous leadership pays off, that development and sustainability are not at odds – that they are compatible.”
China, the world’s biggest emitter, is already building more solar and wind power than the rest of the world combined.
The EU too is poised to continue pushing forward with its green transition. Last year, the bloc generated more than half of its electricity from renewable sources for the first time. Wind and solar alone generated 30 per cent, surpassing fossil fuels. Net greenhouse gas emissions are now 37 per cent below 1990 levels, while EU Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by 68 per cent over the same period.
The European Greens have urged EU leaders to form alliances that will counterbalance Trump’s “dangerous, anti-climate, anti-democracy, far-right agenda”.
“Over the last five years, the European Union, with strong support from the Greens, has started to turn the Green Deal from vision into action,” says Ciarán Cuffe, co-chair of the European Green Party.
“Trump would take us backwards. Now is the time to be guided by science, to step up ambitious climate action, and to resist Trump’s attempts to dismantle global climate agreements.”
