The Trump administration is taking aggressive steps to dismantle climate action and suppress scientific research on climate change. Funding for clean energy projects and electric vehicles is being cut, and the administration is rolling back environmental regulations.
The Biden administration's ambitious climate action plans, including initiatives to finance small-scale community and rooftop solar power projects in low-income neighborhoods and communities, face an uncertain future under the Trump administration. Funding for electric vehicles has also come under attack. The administration revoked Biden's goal for EVs to make up half of new car sales by 2030.
Furthermore, the administration is reviewing California's congestion pricing plan, intended to fund public transport and address traffic and pollution in the city. This echoes Trump's first term, where he withdrew a promised $1 billion in federal funding for the project before it was later reinstated by the Biden administration. Concerns are growing that the Irish government will change its policy regarding liquefied natural gas (LNG) to support imported US fracked gas. Dismantling climate action has gone far beyond promoting support for fossil fuels and withdrawing support for clean energy. The new administration is waging an all-out war on the scientific foundations of climate science and research. The US Environmental Protection Agency has been directed by the Trump administration to remove a scientific finding under the Clean Air Act—the legal basis for US action on climate change—which states that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare. The agency, whose core mission is protecting clean air, land, and water, is facing a potential 65 percent cut in funding. Other key scientific agencies, including the National Science Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, are also facing restrictions. These agencies are facing pressure to reduce or eliminate support for research that even references climate change, including other socially progressive research topics considered “woke” by the new administration. References to climate change and crucial datasets are being removed from agency websites. US scientists are being discouraged from participating in the next international scientific assessment undertaken by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which forms the scientific basis for international climate agreements. NASA has also pulled funding for a team that provides essential technical support to this crucial assessment effort, and no US diplomat joined the latest IPCC meeting. This targeting of climate science and scientists is being denounced as “obscurantism,” echoing the censorship of free speech during McCarthyism. One expert described it as “a smoke screen between scientific knowledge and the general public, and the deliberate spread of misinformation... and unprecedented attacks on academic freedom – when scientists are forbidden to speak out, interact with colleagues abroad, or freely publish scientific work”. The implications of these policies are alarming. The United States bears the greatest historical responsibility for climate change. As the world’s largest economy and leading fossil fuel exporter, its role in shaping global climate action is critical. While individual states and cities may continue to push for progress, Trump’s administration has shattered any hope for national leadership on climate in the coming years. The repercussions will be felt worldwide.
Climate Change Donald Trump Environment Clean Energy Scientific Research
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