What a Trump Presidency Means for the Environment

Emma Lipe, Life Editor

Trump may not have a solid healthcare plan or a way to fund his wall yet, but he seems to know how he’ll take on climate change: he won’t.

Though 97 percent of climate change scientists disagree, Trump has been adamant in his assertions that climate change poses no real threat.

After all, “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive,” he tweeted in 2012.

Kicking off his call for less environmentalism, to head the Environmental Protection Agency, Trump picked Scott Pruitt. Pruitt is an interesting choice as he has spent the last seven years suing the agency 14 times to block regulations that he is now expected to enforce.

In mid-March, Trump released his budget blueprint, which outlines Trump’s plan to slash the EPA’s budget 31 percent, eliminating funds for climate change research.

Funding for foreign aid and poverty programs was also cut. Billions of dollars will be redirected to Defense Department, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs.

The EPA’s Clean Power Plan, which Obama put into place in 2015, is also on Trump’s chopping block.

The Clean Power Plan set standards to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, the primary climate polluter in the U.S., according to the Environmental Defense Fund. Power plants are responsible for about 40 percent of the country’s greenhouse emissions.

Trump has only made outlines to cut the plan; it is uncertain when he will make an official announcement.

Trump is also in the process of moving forward with the controversial $5.4 billion Keystone XL oil pipeline project.

Climate activists who are opposed to the project worry the pipeline will increase the U.S.’s use of fossil fuels and further delay investment in more renewable technologies.

The Obama administration had rejected the project in November 2015.

“America is now a global leader when it comes to taking serious action to fight climate change, and frankly, approving this project would have undercut that leadership,” Obama said.

The former-president was intolerant of climate change deniers.

“The time to plead ignorance is surely past,” he said during a visit to Alaska in 2015. “The deniers are increasingly alone, on their own shrinking island.”

Now, the U.S. is being led by one.