Former President Donald J. Trump promised to “repeal” President Biden’s policies to reduce pollution from fossil fuel-burning power plants, “end” efforts to encourage electric vehicles and “develop the liquid gold that’s right under our feet” promoting oil and natural gas.
These changes and others promised by Mr. Trump if he were to win the presidency again represent a 180-degree U-turn from Mr. Biden’s climate agenda.
While president, Mr. Trump reversed more than 100 environmental protections put in place by the Obama administration. Mr. Biden in turn reversed much of Mr. Trump’s agenda.
But climate advocates argue that a second Trump term would be far more damaging than his first because the window to keep global temperature rises to relatively safe levels is closing fast.
“It would be an all-out assault on any potential progress on climate change,” said Pete Maysmith, senior vice president of campaigns at the League of Conservation Voters, an environmental group.
Senior Republicans don’t necessarily disagree. Michael McKenna, who worked in the Trump White House and supports Mr Trump’s bid for a second term, said the approach to climate change would likely be one of “indifference”.
“I doubt very seriously that we will take the time to work on it,” Mr McKenna said. Instead, he said, the Biden administration’s climate regulations would be “in trouble.”
Mr. Trump’s first term was marked by carelessness in his legal work, which led to some of his efforts to overturn Obama-era climate policies being struck down by the courts. Neil Chatterjee, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission under Mr Trump, said the former president’s team had learned from past mistakes.
“It’s going to be a much more organized and coherent legal and regulatory strategy if there is a Trump 2.0,” Mr Chatterjee said, adding: “These guys know what they’re doing now.”
Here are five of the most significant upheavals a Trump administration could bring to the climate.
1. Coal and natural gas power plants
The plants that burn fossil fuels that keep our lights on or power our heating and air conditioning are responsible for a quarter of the greenhouse gas emissions produced by the United States. Reducing them is key to Mr. Biden’s plan to tackle climate change.
Environmental Protection Agency regulations finalized Thursday will force coal plants to either develop technology to capture nearly all of their emissions or shut down. New gas plants built in the U.S. will also have to meet strict emissions standards.
The Biden administration has estimated that rules governing coal plants would reduce 1.38 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide between now and 2047, the equivalent of preventing the annual emissions from 328 million gasoline-powered cars.
Mr. Trump has used a mixture of truth and falsehood when describing this policy. He said it would force coal plants to close, which is probably accurate. He also said it would force natural gas plants to shut down, which is not true. And he has said that renewables can’t keep the lights on, also untrue.
If elected, Mr. Trump said he would reverse regulation of coal-burning electricity and “give the green light to build hundreds and hundreds of brand new, beautiful power plants that actually work.”
2. Automotive Emission Standards
Mr Trump has been particularly vocal about electric vehicles.
Transportation is responsible for another quarter of US greenhouse gases, with cars and trucks making up the bulk. Mr. Biden has imposed limits on car tailpipe pollution, rules designed to ensure that the majority of new passenger and light trucks sold in the United States will be all-electric or hybrid by 2032.
Mr Trump said these regulations would lead to a “bloodbath” in the US economy, “kill” the auto industry and spark a “killer” of jobs. He vowed to turn them around.
“That will be the first order of business, to unravel all of this,” Mr. McKenna said if Mr. Trump is elected. “I think everyone was pretty clear about that.”
3. The Inflation Reduction Act
The Inflation Reduction Act, which Mr. Biden signed into law in 2022, is the nation’s largest investment to fight climate change.
It includes more than $370 billion in tax credits over 10 years to help the U.S. shift to cleaner forms of energy by offering incentives for companies to build electric vehicles, batteries and for consumers to buy those vehicles, switch to solar and buy things like electrical. heat pumps to heat and cool their homes.
Mr Trump, who has called the IRA “the biggest tax hike in history”, is widely expected to try to gut much of the law.
Incentives for people to buy electric vehicles, which Mr. Trump called “one of the dumbest” decisions he’s heard, would certainly be in the offing, Republicans said. So are measures to support businesses that install electric vehicle charging stations.
Tax credits for solar and wind energy could be a focus of his government, as could incentives for consumers to buy heat pumps or make their homes more energy efficient.
But even Republican opponents of the climate law acknowledge that repealing those tax incentives will be difficult, in large part because many of the battery manufacturing facilities and new electric vehicle factories are being built in Republican districts.
“Unfortunately the wind and solar and EV guys are all on the hook in red situations, so it’s harder to recoup that money,” said Steven J. Milloy, a climate change denier who worked on the group. Mr. Trump’s transition to 2020. But Mr. Miloy said, a Trump administration could do a lot to slow the transition to clean energy, even if the tax breaks remain.
“What the IRA is not doing is forcing anyone to approve wind farms or solar farms,” he said, adding, “I don’t see those being approved under the Trump administration. I see extremely thorough investigations into whale deaths and other environmental problems.”
There is no evidence that offshore wind farms cause whale deaths. Mr Trump has also condemned wind farms, falsely saying they cause cancer.
4. Oil and gas drilling
If he wins a second term, Mr Trump has promised to “unleash domestic energy production like never before”. He mainly talks about coal, oil and natural gas, the three main fossil fuels.
While President Biden has certainly endorsed some major fossil fuel projects, such as the massive Willow oil development on Alaska’s North Slope, and the US produces more oil than any other country, Mr. Biden has also sought to limit future development. His government approved the smallest offshore oil project in history. It has protected hundreds of millions of acres of wilderness from mining and drilling. Earlier this month, Mr. Biden blocked oil and gas development in 13 million acres of wilderness in Alaska.
The US is the world’s top exporter of liquefied natural gas, but the Biden administration has halted permits for new export terminals while the Energy Department studies the effects of natural gas exports on national security, the economy and the climate.
Mr. Trump has promised to immediately lift that pause and green-light pipelines and other energy projects.
“We’re going to drill, baby, drill, right away,” Mr. Trump told supporters in January.
David Hayes, a former climate adviser to the Biden administration, said he expects a Trump White House to revive drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the nation’s first wildlife refuge. Mr. Biden canceled seven oil leases on the reserve last year.
“They’re going to look for symbolism, so they’re going to try to open up other sensitive areas on public land,” Mr. Hayes said of a Trump White House.
5. Global climate negotiations
As president, Mr. Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris accord, a 2015 agreement in which all nations agreed to reduce their greenhouse gases to keep global warming within relatively safe limits.
Mr. Biden took the U.S. back into the global accord on his first day in office and has pledged to cut U.S. emissions by about half this decade and stop adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere before 2050.
Mr Trump’s potential policies would add four billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere, according to a study by Carbon Briefa climate analysis site.
Many foreign leaders saw the global superpower’s four-year absence during the Trump administration as a setback. They fear another US withdrawal will delay progress at a time when time is running out to avoid the most devastating effects of global warming.
Mukhtar Babayev, the incoming president of the UN summit in November, called on the US to keep its climate commitments even if Mr Trump wins in November, although he did not mention Mr Trump by name.