The climate cost of President Trump 2.0
Or: why the November election really matters.
The U.S. presidential election is now a little less than six months away.
If President Biden loses his reelection bid, and Donald “Drill, baby, drill” Trump returns for a second stint in the White House, what would that mean for the climate?
Well, for starters, at a time when it’s critical that the United States drastically slash the carbon emissions that are fueling the climate crisis, a Trump victory would lead to billions more tonnes emissions than a Biden presidency.
This is according to recent analysis by Carbon Brief which concluded that Trump’s win could add 4bn tonnes to US emissions by 2030, leading to +$900bn in global climate-related damages. Given the size of the U.S., a Trump win would have profound global implications, likely dashing hopes of keeping warming below 1.5C.
Find out more at Carbon Brief
Jeva Lange at Heatmap News went through “Project 2025,” the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for a Trump presidency. She found that, if implemented, the 920-page plan would majorly exacerbate climate change:
🍃 Environmental Impact: The plan seeks to gut programs, subsidies, and regulations related to climate and environmental protection.
🌍 Global Effects: The plan aims to rescind climate policies from foreign aid programs and limit funding for climate mitigation efforts.
🔥 Climate Culture War: MAGA Republicans aim to turn “climate” into a meaningless culture war buzzword.
⚡️ Science and Weapons: The plan focuses on using science for weapons of war, not renewable technologies.
(Incidentally: Jeva’s most recent piece for Heatmap is all about how oil and gas industry folks are helping foot the bill for the embattled former president’s legal fees. The tl:dr — “Some of the industry’s biggest boosters and beneficiaries really, really want to keep Trump out of jail.” It’s not terribly hard to figure out why.)
For the New York Times, Lisa Friedman recently outlined five major climate policies that Trump would likely seek to reverse if elected:
1. Reversing regulations on coal and gas power plants to allow more emissions.
2. Reversing automobile emissions standards that aim to increase electric vehicle adoption.
3. Gutting the Inflation Reduction Act's climate investments in clean energy and electric vehicles.
4. Expanding oil and gas drilling, including in protected areas.
5. Withdrawing the U.S. from global climate negotiations like the Paris Agreement.
The article notes that “climate advocates argue a second Trump term would be far more damaging than his first, because the window to keep rising global temperatures to relatively safe levels is rapidly closing.”
“Imagine what we could do with big-time climate policy!!”
Back in 2021, the climate scientist
wrote in her wonderful Substack, , about the climate implications of who you vote for:A new study has quantified how much an individual voter can influence climate pollution, and it’s HUGE.
For example, if you voted in the 2019 Canadian election for Justin Trudeau’s winning Liberal party, the researchers calculated your vote saved 34.2 tons of climate pollution per year. That’s like taking 14 typical gas cars off the road.
Conversely, if instead the Conservative party of Canada had won, their voters would have effectively tripled their carbon footprints overnight.
Please consider: these huge emissions reductions per voter are for climate policies that are still pretty weak sauce, and FAR short of what’s needed. The emissions reductions from the Liberal party’s policies in Canada were modeled at about 1.2% per year; we need about 8% reductions per year globally, and up to 10% per year in rich countries like the UK, to meet the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C. Imagine what we could do with big-time climate policy!!
Three years later, Kimberly’s post about voting remains extremely relevant. Read the rest:
MEANWHILE IN CALIFORNIA
One of the most exciting pieces of proposed legislation introduced in the California State Legislature this year is an amendment to the state constitution which would enshrine the right to “clean air and water, and a healthy environment.”
You have the chance to hear all about why this is a big deal from the bill author himself, Assemblyman Isaac Bryan (and his co-author Senator Henry Stern) on May 14, courtesy of the Climate Reality Project San Fernando Chapter.
RSVP for the event here.
Thanks so much for the great post and for sharing my post on the climate impact of voting! EU election is in 3 weeks, climate is on the ballot!