As Trump retakes White House, climate-change experts gird for another four-year fight

Climate-change experts facing a second Trump presidency that's widely expected to downplay the risks of a warming world are looking to Democratic governors and mayors to again pick up the mantle, along with some environmental nonprofits.

During his first term, President Donald Trump prioritized oil and gas development and softened efforts to fight climate change, including withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accords. He has promised to again prioritize the nation's economy over fighting climate change.

"We need states and cities and business and organizations to step up just as we did in 2017," said Gina McCarthy, who oversaw the Environmental Protection Agency under President Barack Obama and is now the co-chair of the climate coalition America is All In. "We cannot and will not let anyone stand in the way of giving our kids and grandkids the freedom to grow up in safer and healthier communities."

Last summer was the hottest since people began taking instrument readings in the 1800s, and tree-ring studies show it was the hottest in at least 2,000 years.

Climate experts say extreme heat alone causes thousands of deaths annually in the United States, atop the billions of dollars in damage caused by climate change-strengthened hurricanes and wildfires.

During Trump's first presidency, some of the nation's climate-fighting work fell to to Democrat-run states like California and Massachusetts, as well as cities across the political spectrum.

A 2022 survey of the nation's mayors found that 90% of them acknowledge human-caused climate change, and that 97% of mayors worried about the local impacts, from bigger or more frequent wildfires to flooding, drought and extreme heat.

Speaking on a call with reporters last week, McCarthy, several Democratic governors and other environmental advocates said they will "fill the gap" left by the federal government if Trump follows through on his promises to reduce the nation's focus on climate change.

"We know we have a responsibility to continue to address the climate crisis," New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said on the call.

Drill, drill, drill

Among the groups helping will be the U.S. Climate Alliance, a bipartisan coalition of 24 governors representing about half the country's population and 60% of the economy.

On the campaign trail, Trump said he would push to "drill, drill, drill," and further increase already record-setting oil-and-gas production. He has also promised to slow the Biden administration's efforts to get Americans driving electric vehicles. The transportation sector – which includes cars, SUVs and pickups – accounts for nearly 30% of the country's greenhouse gas emissions, according to the EPA.

In his first term, Trump dismantled many federal climate change efforts, routinely attacked wind turbines for being "ugly", and used his executive power to appoint climate-skeptical judges and push out longtime scientific experts.

"We have more liquid gold than any country in the world," Trump said in his Election Day victory speech, highlighting his plans for more oil and gas extraction, which he argues will bring prices down at the gas pump and grocery store.

On Monday, Trump announced he was naming former New York Congressman Lee Zeldin to run the EPA.

Zeldin "will ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses, while at the same time maintaining the highest environmental standards, including the cleanest air and water on the planet," Trump said in announcing the appointment.

In the Oct. 1 vice presidential debate, Trump's running mate, Sen. JD Vance, called climate change "a very important issue" and said many Americans are "justifiably worried about all these crazy weather patterns." Ensuring world-leading American manufacturing and energy production will help protect the environment, he said.

"So if we actually care about getting cleaner air and cleaner water, the best thing to do is to double down and invest in American workers and the American people," he said.

'The stakes couldn't be higher'

This summer's hurricanes that slammed into Florida's Gulf Coast represent what experts say is a growing reality: Climate change is making storms more powerful, while also raising sea levels and causing more rain to fall in some areas.

Many climate change experts say the second Trump administration's focus on the economy exposes Americans to more long-term risks from flooding, wildfires and hurricane winds because it will increase rather than decrease the amount of climate-warming greenhouse gasses the U.S. pumps into the atmosphere.

Simultaneously, because Trump has historically downplayed the impact of climate change, experts say his second administration will again be less likely to fund science-based preparedness efforts, which include building flood barriers in Boston and New York City, relocating at-risk communities in Alaska and Louisiana and reducing wildfire risk in California.

"When it comes to the climate, the stakes could not be higher," said professor Leah Stokes of the University of California, Santa Barbara, who studies environmental politics and is writing a book on federal climate policy. "Destroying institutions is quite an easy thing to do. Building them back up takes decades."

Some climate activists say there's plenty of opportunity to boost both the economy and a "green" agenda simultaneously, in part by investing in American-made wind turbines and electric vehicles, creating new jobs installing solar panels on homes, and developing new ways to farm with less water.

Lujan Grisham said investors know the importance of acting now, whether or not the White House is on board. Oil and gas extraction is the largest industry in New Mexico, but the state has also doubled its wind-energy production since 2019.

"We have been in this position before ... we know that the economics are on our side here. The climate economy works, and it has massive opportunity," said Lujan Grisham, who co-chairs the Climate Alliance. "The private sector in fact across the United States has mobilized trillions of dollars into the markets and there frankly isn't any going back."

Maintaining commitment over the long term

Many state governments are also invested in building climate resilience. And in states where climate change itself is less of a concern, some leaders are trying to split the difference by focusing more on the potential economic impacts of climate resiliance.

In Wyoming, Republican Gov. Mark Gordon hopes Trump maintains some consistency in federal support for emerging technologies like carbon capture, in which machines suck carbon dioxide out of the air and store it deep underground. Backers say the technology promises to reverse the climate impacts of digging up and burning Wyoming's coal, which could help encourage power companies to continue buying it.

Carbon-capture technology does not yet work on a scale large enough to make a real difference, however, and supporters want assurances that their billion-dollar investments in the necessary infrastructure, along with workers to run it, will be worth it no matter who sits in the White House. Wyoming's coal mining industry has been slowly collapsing as utilities shift to greener energy.

Gordon wants to protect Wyoming's economy by maintaining some coal production while also encouraging carbon-capture development.

"Those four-year (presidential) cycles are disruptive to business, and what I'm interested in doing is making sure we have careers that are tenable going into the future, which means people have to have confidence that the commitment is going to be there," Gordon said.

Nonprofits will keep fighting climate change

Some nonprofits say they're committed to working with the new administration to advance their priorities when it comes to climate change. Others are taking matters into their own hands.

Three hundred miles above Earth, a recently launched satellite developed by the climate-change-focused Environmental Defense Fund scans the globe for the potent greenhouse gas methane – tracking both the gas and what governments are doing to limit leaks.

EDF, which launched the refrigerator-sized MethaneSAT this summer, didn't want to be dependent on the U.S. government to track one of the human-emitted gases blamed for raising Earth's temperature.

"For the first time, we have a tool that is not only going to be able to hold industry accountable, but also for the first time hold governments accountable," said Mark Brownstein of the EDF. "This information will enable us all of to know whether the government is doing what it is supposed to be doing."

Under a Trump presidency, EDF could use MethaneSAT measurements to sue the federal government to enforce existing methane emissions laws passed in 2022. The Biden administration on Tuesday issued the final regulation necessary to implement those methane emission restrictions, although Trump could seek to overturn them.

"There's no way that any nonprofit or even all of the nonprofits could ever replicate what we need governments to do," said Fred Krupp, EDF's longtime president. "But no matter what the political circumstances are, we need to make the biggest contribution that we can. If the United States government were to again withdraw from working on climate change, it would be catastrophic."

At the National Audubon Society, officials say they're proud of their work with both Democratic and Republican administrations and say they're confident there's bipartisan support for clean energy and other efforts to make communities more climate resilient. That's better for both humans and birds.

"Birds do not belong to a political party: They are not Republican or Democrat, and through their migratory activity, they lead borderless lives," said Felice Stadler, Audubon's vice president of government affairs. "Regardless of who is in the White House, we will continue to advocate for and stand against a major reversal in investments for climate solutions, which will not only be disruptive to local economies and U.S. manufacturing, but ecologically damaging, putting communities on the front lines of climate-fueled disasters at ever greater risk."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Climate change scientists brace for another four years of Trump