After Donald Trump was elected to be the next president of the United States, citizens were concerned for the future of our country for many reasons. One of those reasons being his stance on climate change.
Donald Trump was slammed during the presidential race for posting a tweet in 2012 where he denied the existence of climate change, and even went as far as to say it was a “Chinese invention to undermine U.S. business interests” (CNN). During the first presidential debate, Trump denied that he ever called climate change a hoax (even though the tweet is still available to see on his twitter account), but he did admit that he believes it is naturally occurring, rather than man-made.
It is well known that president-elect Trump has a distaste for the regulations the Environmental Protection Agency has enacted under Obama’s administration. According to the Washington Post’s Brady Dennis, “he has vowed to roll back Obama’s signature effort to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, known as the Clean Power Plan, and to scrap a litany of other “unnecessary” rules, especially those imposed on the oil, gas and coal sectors.” Being a large proponent of the monetary success of big business, he found it unbecoming that such “restrictive” regulations be passed against them. In order to take the reigns on the EPA, he has appointed notorious climate skeptic Myron Ebell to help “ease” the transition into a new administration. This man can single-handedly destroy Obama’s environmental legacy. Although Ebell has not commented on his plans for the EPA, it is easy to surmise what may be in store.
Just last year, the Paris Climate Conference was a monumental step for international action against climate change. The Paris Agreement, negotiated at the climate conference by representatives of 195 countries, was adopted by December 12, 2015, and was signed on April 22, 2016 (Earth Day). Finally, it went into effect on November 4, 2016. Overall, this agreement established a threshold for the increase of global average temperature to 1.5oC above pre-industrial levels, produced a unified global front in creating low-emission based development that does not threaten food production, and started the development toward a stable, climate resilient financial pathway. This climate conference was so monumental in that nations were finally able to agree peacefully about what to do in terms of the growing issue of climate change.
Donald Trump seeks to cancel the Paris Agreement, or renegotiate the terms of the agreement to fit his ideology of climate change. Moreover, Trump wants to hinder American tax dollars from going to U.N. global warming programs. Although these things would be difficult, considering that he does not have the power to cancel the agreement or withdraw from it immediately, Donald Trump still has the power to ignore the agreement. According to a video from USA Today, “It is unlikely that other countries will feel comfortable making big reductions in their greenhouse gas emissions if the United States is not taking the lead.”
Now after reading all of this you may be wondering, what does this all mean? In latent terms, a Donald Trump presidency will significantly damage the positive actions against climate change. Even though many environmentalists are trying to remain optimistic, it is hard to think of the future as being bright, when the Paris Agreement was made on such a fragile foundation.
The idea of global warming has only recently become a widely accepted norm due to mass scientific evidence proving its existence, and even then, there are still many skeptics and non-believers. Climate change skeptics and non-believers tend to argue things such as “The climate has changed drastically before”, or “Animals and plants can adapt”; however, the evidence such as human emissions being the dominant climate forcing and the fact that adaptability will be out of the question due to the short time span of these volatile climate changes is clear. If we do not continue to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, the world will suffer, and in turn, so will we. We are already on a path to destruction and president-elect Donald Trump’s anti environmental policies and actions will only seek to further that path.
