Trump’s Victory May Mean Less Momentum to Curb Climate Change
by evaristo lara / huella zero
The president-elect promises to reverse Biden’s climate and energy policies, prioritizing oil over clean energy, which will intensify the climate crisis.
The return of Republican Donald Trump to the White House will change the course of the energy and environmental policies promoted by Democrat Joe Biden over the last four years.
Trump, 78, will seek to boost the economy and then direct his efforts toward other campaign promises. To this end, he considers it essential to increase the production of hydrocarbons, downplaying the negative effects that this entails.
“We can do it if we have the oil supply, and we have more than anyone else. Your heating and air conditioning, electricity, gas, everything can be cut in half. To achieve this rapid reduction in energy costs, I will declare a national emergency that allows us to dramatically increase energy production, generation, and supply,” Trump said during a rally in August. “From day one, I will approve new drilling, new pipelines, new refineries, new power plants, new reactors and we will cut red tape,” he added.
On repeated occasions, the president-elect has minimized the concept of climate change; in addition, during his first stint at the helm of the White House, he oversaw promoting the repeal of more than 100 environmental regulations and withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement, a global commitment to combat climate change.
During his election campaign, Trump assured that he would reverse the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a landmark legislation that has boosted the transition to clean energy. However, the president-elect has not yet announced an exact date to implement his promises related to energy issues.
“To further defeat inflation, my plan will kill the Green New Deal, which I call the ‘new green scam.’ The biggest scam in history, probably. We will rescind all unspent funds under the so-called Inflation Reduction Act,” he anticipated.
More Oil Less Clean Energy Republicans won a majority in the House and Senate, so approval is expected to drill offshore and on federal lands to search for new oil and gas fields.
Trump is convinced that oil companies will achieve an automatic decrease in the price of fuel, but he forgets that this is not governed by the White House, but by the global market.
Arguing that it is too expensive and poses a threat to whales and seabirds, Trump signaled that he would stop boosting offshore wind power.
In contrast, activists and environmental defenders such as Yoca Arditi-Rocha, executive director of The CLEO Institute, call for promoting the transition to clean energies, such as solar or wind, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In an interview with Sachamama, Arditi-Rocha warned that air pollution affects both the planet’s temperatures and people’s health. “We Latinos disproportionately feel those impacts. More than 9 million people die directly or indirectly because of pollution,” he said.
