No more turning around. This is actually happening and Donald Trump is the 45th President of United States of America.
What Mr. President has planned to do looks like an absolute disaster for the planet. Specifically, all the fragile but important progress the world has made on global warming over the past eight years is now in danger of being blown to dust.
Donald Trump has been crystal clear about his plans in terms of environment. Here are the indications of what a Trump Presidency might mean for climate change!
- Trump called global warming a Chinese hoax. He couldn’t be any blunter about this.
- Trump has said, straight up, that he wants to scrap all the sweeping regulations that President Obama painstakingly put in place to reduce US carbon dioxide emissions, including the Clean Power Plan. With Republicans controlling the House and Senate, he could do it. Pass a bill and sign it. Done.
- Trump has even hinted that he wants to get rid of the Environmental Protection Agency altogether. “What they do is a disgrace,” he has said. If Congress agrees, the EPA is scaled back. Good-bye regulations on mercury pollution, on smog, on coal ash, and more.
- Trump has said he wants to repeal all federal spending on clean energy, including R&D for wind, solar, nuclear power, and electric vehicles. Again, with Congress at his side, this is totally doable.
- Trump has said he wants to pull the United States out of the Paris climate deal. There’s nothing stopping him. (Technically, the US can’t officially withdraw for four years, but for all practical purposes, the Trump administration could ignore it.)
