WASHINGTON, DC, January 25, 2025 (ENS) – In President Donald J. Trump’s first five days in office, he has made sweeping changes to the position of the United States on climate change and fossil fuel development that will have far-reaching negative effects on both the physical and political environments across the United States and around the world.
On a planet that was hotter last year that in any previous year in recorded history, a planet on which the past 10 years 2015-2024 were the 10 hottest years on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization, President Trump has directed his government officials to:
- Withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement on climate, which took effect in 2016 with almost all nations participating. To control fast-multiplying climate change, which gave the planet its hottest year on record in 2024, the Paris Agreement commits nations to pursue policies limiting the carbon emissions that cause climate change.
As of 2025, all 197 countries of the United Nations have endorsed the Paris Agreement, and of those 195 have given formal approval.
The only countries that have yet to formally join the agreement are Iran, Libya, and Yemen, a group of outlier countries the United States will again join, as in the first Trump Administration (2017-2021), when he pulled the United States out of the Paris Agreement for the first time.
In 2021, President Joe Biden reinstated U.S. participation in the landmark accord.
In December 2024, as the United States was still accelerating its transition to a clean energy economy, President Biden announced a new climate target for the United States: a 61-66 percent reduction in 2035 from 2005 levels in economy-wide net greenhouse gas emissions. And he allotted $7.5 billion to install 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations across the country.
“As part of the Infrastructure Law, we’re investing $7.5 billion to build electric vehicle charging stations all across America,” President Biden said on December 19, 2024, one month before his presidency ended. “So, today I’m pleased to announce we’re approving funding for the first 35 states, including Michigan, to build their own electric charging infrastructure throughout their state.”
The Biden climate actions were accomplishing their goals. In 2024, US greenhouse gas emissions stayed nearly unchanged from last year. Since peaking in 2004, emissions have trended downward. Emissions are still below pre-pandemic levels and remain about 20 percent below 2005 levels, the benchmark for U.S. commitments under the Paris Agreement, according to the U.S.-based Rhodium Group which analyzes global climate change and energy systems.
But Biden’s comprehensive, long-term plan for slashing the greenhouse gas emissions that fuel climate change was wiped out with sweeping executive orders signed on Trump’s first day in office, January 20, 2025.
Trump’s executive orders are also aimed at eliminating Biden policies intended to encourage electric vehicle development and purchases, such as a $7,500 per vehicle federal government incentive for first-time EV buyers.
Trump ordered government agencies to, “Repeal multiple Biden orders and memoranda regarding climate change, including guidelines for implementing climate-related provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022; an effort to assess financial risks of not combating climate change; and establishment of a President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.”
Trump’s orders this week also block transfer of U.S. funds already earmarked for the International Climate Finance Plan. For FY2025, the Biden Administration’s State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs budget request specified $3 billion in direct and indirect climate finance from State and USAID accounts and $0.3 billion in direct climate finance from Treasury accounts.
The Biden request claims the congressional funding would “support the President’s $11 billion commitment for international climate finance,” with more finance from loans, loan guarantees, and other financial instruments intended to leverage private-sector investment.
Leaders at World Economic Forum in Davos React
European leaders, who spoke on the EU’s climate ambition in a more competitive world after President Trump’s executive order to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement, reinforced their need to maintain focus.
“What we have in the Green Deal… we should stick to it from a climate perspective, but also from a competitiveness perspective,” said Alexander De Croo, the Prime Minister of Belgium, while addressing the President’s inauguration on Monday. “The world is full of uncertainty, [and] after yesterday, even more. And maybe tomorrow, there might be even more uncertainty.”
“Let’s please, as Europeans within the European Union, not add uncertainty by creating ambiguity on our goals,” the Belgian leader said.
Marc Ferracci, the Minister of Industry and Energy in France, said, “If there is a way for European countries to face, what I would say, is the ‘Trump challenge’, it’s unity.”
“We need to be firm and strong and alleviate the path and how we try to achieve the climate goals,” Ferracci said.
Following the European elections in June 2024, the European Green Deal remains the central policy blueprint for achieving climate neutrality by 2050.
Private sector leadership is expected to contribute while helping strengthen the continent’s position in the global economy, as reported in the World Economic Forum publication, ‘Delivering on the European Green Deal: A Private Sector Perspective – Second Edition‘.
For the second year in a row, this report analyzes the targets set and actions taken by the European private sector, across industries, to accelerate progress towards reaching net zero while identifying areas where additional action is needed, including areas for enhanced public-private collaboration.
While aggregate European private sector emissions have fallen by 28 percent since 2019, reaching the net-zero target remains challenging.
In other executive orders he signed on Day One, President Trump directed his agencies to:
- Declare a “national energy emergency.” This declaration is symbolic, referencing Trump’s promise of energy expansion, but in addition it urges federal use of eminent domain and the Defense Production Act, measures that permit the government to commandeer private land and resources to produce goods considered necessary in a national emergency.
- Compel the Army Corps of Engineers to use “to the fullest extent possible” its emergency permitting provisions to speed energy projects and urge all agencies to use similar emergency procedures that expedite or bypass permitting processes under the Endangered Species Act or other federal laws that protect wildlife.
- Require all agencies within 30 days to submit to the White House Office of Management and Budget their plans to eliminate regulations and rules deemed “burdensome” to domestic energy production and consumption, “with particular attention to oil, natural gas, coal, hydropower, biofuels, critical mineral, and nuclear energy.”
- Streamline other fossil fuel extraction in Alaska with a command to “rescind, revoke, revise, amend, defer or grant exemptions from any and all” regulatory actions relevant in the state.
But climate scientists at the Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs warn that, “the Earth’s surface north of the Arctic Circle, which includes nearly a third of Alaska, is warming 3-4 times faster than the global average. Alaska as a whole is warming twice as fast as the lower 48 states.”
Wildlife across the United States, but especially in Alaska, will be harmed by Trump’s fossil fuel extraction policies. Specifically, Trump is restoring any suspended fossil fuel leases within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
- Trump has ordered the denial of a pending U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service request to create an indigenous sacred site within the federal Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.
- Restore first Trump administration rules on hunting and trapping in national preserves in Alaska. Order the Interior Department to align federal rules on hunting and fishing in Alaska with rules for state-government lands.
- Roll back other Biden era limits or regulations on fossil fuel extraction on federal lands.
- Make the Outer Continental Shelf ineligible for wind energy leases, another limitation on non-fossil fuel development.
- Re-visit a legal and regulatory battle with California State government over water routes from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Trump wants to override fish and wildlife protection efforts to route more of the water to the Central Valley and Southern California. He says it will help fight wildfires like those still menacing the Los Angeles area, but California water experts say the lack of water in some hydrants to fight the fires was a result of the failures of municipal governments in the fire zone, not lack of water movement from northern California to the south.
“We’re going to need your support, we’re going to need your help and I have all the expectations that we’ll be able to work together to get this speedy recovery,” said California Governor Gavin Newsom. President Trump responded, “We will.” When asked about the disagreements between the two politicians over the last week, Trump said, “We’re looking to get something completed and the way you get it completed is to work together.”
More than $27 billion is being spent on roughly 60 electric vehicle manufacturing and battery projects in the state of Michigan alone, according to Atlas Public Policy, a climate policy and research firm based in Washington, DC. “From 2000 to September 2024, private companies announced $208.8 billion in investments in U.S. electric vehicle and battery manufacturing. More than three-quarters of all investments are either under construction or operational as of October 2024. These investments are associated with more than 240,000 manufacturing jobs,” Atlas states on its website. In addition, Michigan hosts hundreds of auto parts supply companies.
Featured image: Sunset over the Delta Wild and Scenic River Watershed in Southcentral Alaska. 2014. The Watershed includes 150,000 acres / 607 square kilometers of land, 160 miles / 257 kilometers of streams and 21 lakes, offering habitat for migrating caribou, 100+ species of migrating birds, and a variety of fish. Surrounded by arctic tundra, this is a popular place for people picking berries. (Photo by Bob Wick, U.S. Bureau of Land Management)
