The US presidential election is less than a week away Donald Trump and: Kamala Harris vote within two points of each other, and the race remains on a knife’s edge.
And while Harris is expected to continue climate policy led by incumbents president joe bidenTrump is likely to take steps to eliminate green legislation introduced by his predecessor and increase investment in fossil fuels.
At the time when the climate crisis growing at a rapid pace, here’s what you need to know about Trump’s environmental policies.
Republicans are an “anti-climatic party”.
Dr. Jared Finnegan, director of climate change policy and MA at University College London, told Yahoo News that the Republican Party has been skeptical of climate change since the early 1990s.
“It’s just gotten more intense since then,” he said. “They’ve always been kind of an anti-climatic party.”
The climate debate is considered an “extremely divisive issue” in the US. “It’s very polarizing,” he added.
The Republican manifesto mentions nothing about the environment other than increasing US domestic energy.
“Increasing internal energy means increasing fossil fuels. That means finding ways, subsidies and reducing regulations to increase oil and gas production in the United States,” Finnegan said.
Kathy Prushinsky, Trump specialist and PhD candidate in the Department of Politics and International Affairs. University of Sheffieldechoes this.
“The Republican Party is advocating for increased domestic production of oil, gas and coal, all of which we’ve been trying to divest ourselves of for decades,” he told Yahoo News.
One of the driving factors behind this decision, Finnegan believes, is due to Republican Party donors.
“The Republican Party is taking huge investments from oil and gas and polluting industries. Trump? I don’t know if he has an ideology,” he said.
Dismantling Joe Biden’s climate legacy
Unveiling a series of ambitious climate packages was a point of pride for incumbent President Biden.
Part of this climate and energy legacy was the $391 billion Inflation Relief Act, part of which invested in clean domestic energy production by setting up battery factories for electric car makers in industrial cities.
However, Trump has warned that those measures will come first.
“The party platform cuts back and gets rid of the climate change policies that Biden has implemented. Trump himself goes further,” Finnegan said.
“If Trump chooses to repeal the DEA in its entirety, it will basically get rid of almost everything in the US when it comes to climate change.”
However, repealing the legislation will be quite a challenge. More likely, the act will fade over time and disappear.
Even among Trump’s casual voter base, according to Andy Garraway, a former cabinet adviser to former Energy Secretary Alok Sharma and head of climate policy at sustainability research firm Resilience, the legislation is very popular.
“One of the really smart things that Biden was able to do as part of the deflation act was really focus on climate job growth in industrial areas, areas that are most likely to see jobs lost from the green transition,” Garraway told Yahoo News. .
Because of that, its cancellation could mean Trump has a fight on his hands.
“The reason for the creation of those jobs is ignored. They don’t really care that it’s a climate bill that provides this funding,” Garraway said.
The Paris Agreement
Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement during his first term in office sent shockwaves around the world.
The international climate change agreement, signed by 196 countries, aims to keep global temperature rises below 2C this century above pre-industrial levels, ideally 1.5C.
Following this rise in temperatures, experts warn the world could plunge into economic, environmental and social collapse, with extreme weather becoming the norm, widespread crop failure leading to famine and rising sea levels eroding coastlines.
On January 20, 2021, his first day in office, Biden returned the Paris Agreement to the United States.
But in November, a Trump campaign spokeswoman said Political that if he returns to power, he will withdraw from the agreement once again.
“If Trump wants to pull out of the Paris agreement again and try to blow up the negotiation process, they can do it in a number of ways and create a headache for other developed countries,” Finnegan said. “High-income countries tend to negotiate as a bloc.
The results could have implications for other major powers that are under pressure to reduce their emissions.
“If America doesn’t stick to its climate goals, you’re going to have countries like China, possibly India, saying, ‘well, if they don’t stick to climate goals, we’re not going to stick to climate goals now,'” he said. is Prushinsky.
“If Trump doesn’t cut emissions, climate change will be worse as a result for all of us.”
Without a US presence at COP30, the first climate conference where each country must come back and present an updated national commitment and raise the level of ambition to reduce emissions, the absence of a US presence could be extremely damaging.
As the US now accounts for around 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions, it is a key player in limiting the damage from the climate crisis.
“The United States still plays such an important role in any kind of international negotiations. It’s also a good opportunity, I think, for the United States to hear voices that aren’t usually heard in this kind of conversation,” Garraway said.
“Small island states that are directly affected are at least on paper given equal weight in terms of opportunities to speak.
“Someone telling you that their house will be under water in 20 years is a very powerful and powerful thing to hear.”
Increased emissions
While Trump may want to invest in fossil fuels and move away from the global climate agenda, Garraway warns that the realities of climate change are already being felt and that public mandates can have some effect.
“Just the other day, the United States faced Hurricane Helen, the effects of which have been exacerbated by climate change,” he said.
“Climate disasters like this affect states like Florida that go heavily Republican. They see the impacts on their doorstep. Whether they fully accept the science or not, their houses are being flooded.”
Finnegan believes that if Trump wins, progress on climate will be surrounded by “more delays and more obstacles.”
“The progress we’ve made over the last few years is turning the clock back again,” he said. “US emissions likely won’t increase, they just won’t decrease as fast.
While Trump isn’t likely to double U.S. emissions in four years, Finnegan warns that it’s important he actively reduces them.
“I think it further undermines the policy process, so it takes another decade to start again. And we don’t have that time.”
That said, other market forces are at play.
“We are not going to build new coal-fired power plants in the US. It’s just not economically feasible. The sun and wind are also becoming cheaper. So, even without politics, you get this drip, drip, drip change,” he said.
“But it’s not fast enough.”