Biden, Trump and the Climate's Future
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When you look up anything including the keywords “Biden, Trump, Environment”, you will see a series of articles with titles such as “How Worse can the Climate Crisis get if Trump Wins”, and “The Climate can’t survive another Trump Presidency''. Most media outlets that address the climate crisis are more liberal leaning and therefore portray Donald Trump’s potential 2024 reelection as a catastrophic event, both for the climate and in general.
When surveying students around campus, almost 100% of Northwestern students said that they thought the climate crisis was in worse hands with Trump as president. Logically, it would make sense for Trump’s Republican administration to have a worse effect on climate change than Biden’s Democratic administration, but is this actually true in practice? This article will delve into the differences between Biden and Trump’s administrations in dealing with the climate crisis, and if there is a large difference in their respective impacts.
During Trump’s presidency, he was heavily focused on repealing policies involving climate change. One of Trump’s first actions in office was to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, an agreement among 195 countries to cut carbon emissions. Trump also rolled back climate action taken by the Obama administration, such as the Clean Air Act, which classified greenhouse gas emissions as harmful air pollution and invoked necessary EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) guidelines. Trump also overturned Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which was designed to reduce carbon emissions in the power sector by prohibiting the construction of new coal plants without carbon capture and storage capabilities.
Trump replaced Obama’s plans with the “Affordable Clean Energy Rule,” which, according to the EPA, will only reduce carbon emissions from the power sector by approximately 1% over the next decade. This is extremely concerning in light of the U.S. being one of the world’s largest carbon emitters and bodes ill for the UN’s goal of keeping global warming under 2ºC before the year 2100. While Trump did intentionally overturn many climate-oriented policies, he could have done a lot more to actively work against his predecessor’s climate agenda had he wished, making him perhaps a smaller threat than many might think.
In contrast, Biden made climate action a key point of his 2020 campaign in hopes of mobilizing more youth voters. He has taken some significant steps in achieving this campaign promise, such as bringing the U.S. back into the Paris Climate Agreement on his first day in office. In 2022, Biden introduced the Inflation Reduction Act, which pledged $369 billion worth of climate investments over the next decade. The money will go to organizations such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) as well as the Department of Energy (DOE) and has been praised by scientists around the globe. The Act will reduce U.S. carbon emissions to about 30-40% below 2005 levels by 2030 but only if it is followed through on.
In summer 2023, the Biden administration released proposed regulations that would expand oil and gas extraction on public land. Federal data shows that nearly 24 million acres of public land, an area larger than the state of Indiana, are already dedicated to the oil and gas industry; the expansion means that an even greater proportion of US energy will come from fossil fuels as opposed to clean energy sources. As such, while Biden has allocated large amounts of money to climate change policy, he has also failed to stop, if not encouraged, legislation that would undercut the climate efforts he publicizes. This creates a powerful question — do Biden’s positive climate efforts even matter if they are countered by his other actions?
Personally, I will still be voting for Biden this November, but largely because I am scared of a Trump America for a myriad of reasons. Biden is a better president for the climate, because he is at the very least taking some positive steps whereas Trump is not. The sad truth is, however, it will be nearly impossible to keep global warming under the 2ºC threshold indicated by the Paris Climate Agreement. No single president, Republican or Democrat, would be able to focus on climate action enough to make a significant difference unless they set aside all of their other responsibilities. Unfortunately, even though climate change is an existential threat, policy decisions that produce immediate, tangible results will always take priority.