Environmentalists are reeling following Donald Trump’s election last week as president of the United States, trying to assess what a future under the climate change denier might look like. “Trump’s proposals are those of a willful child, recklessly breaking things he can’t repair,” 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben said in a Friday release. “He wants to reject the Paris Agreement and Clean Power Plan–perhaps he’ll try and reject the laws of physics and chemistry, as well.”
They got a clue late last week on what lies ahead when it was confirmed that Trump has tapped Myron Ebell to oversee the transition of the Environmental Protection Agency under the new administration. Ebell leads the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and chairs the “Cooler Heads Coalition,” which describes itself as an “informal and ad-hoc group focused on dispelling the myths of global warming by exposing flawed economic, scientific, and risk analysis.”
Throughout his campaign Trump took aim at the EPA, saying he would cut the climate change focus that has developed during the Obama administration. He has pledged to deregulate the energy industry, decrying rules such as the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, carbon emissions standards for existing coal-fired power plants. Ebell shares a desire to dump the Clean Power Plan, which he has said is illegal.
Trump has also said repeatedly he will seek to “cancel” or withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement on climate change, an action that might have been prevented by the accord’s entry into force earlier this month. Under the agreement, upon that milestone, a member party may not withdraw for four years.
However, Reuters reported over the weekend that Trump is looking for an exit plan: “The future Trump administration is weighing alternatives to accelerate the pull-out: sending a letter withdrawing from the 1992 international framework accord that is the parent treaty of the Paris Agreement; voiding U.S. involvement in both in a year’s time; or issuing a presidential order simply deleting the U.S. signature from the Paris accord.”