The Trump administration’s decisions are aimed at destroying climate science

Officially: 2024 was the year the hottest year in history. Not only did temperatures surpass 2023 as the previous hottest year, they also surpassed the Paris Climate Agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels for the first time.

Whether you turn on the TV to watch the news about the latest superstorm or raging wildfire, or can see these disasters with your own eyes just by looking outside, the climate crisis is all around us.

If there was ever a worst time in history to undermine climate science and America’s climate leadership, now is it. So it’s outrageous that President-elect Donald Trump’s election to key administration posts suggests he intends to do just that. And the apparent pro-fossil fuel and anti-science agenda extends beyond Trump’s picks for the positions most obviously related to climate policy. We know that nominations like the fossil fuel industry’s Lee Zeldin to lead the Environmental Protection Agency and oil industry executive Chris Wright to head the Department of Energy spell disaster for lives and livelihoods, and for health and well-being communities and working families. But these are not the only foxes in the henhouse.

Case in point: Russell Vought, Trump’s pick to head the Office of Management and Budget. Vaught is an architect Project 2025an authoritarian play to destroy democratic institutions and checks and balances to support the far right. Vaught is the author of the chapter on the executive office, which outlines ways Trump can increase his power. As OMB chairman, Vought will oversee the office assigned to supervise “implementation of the president’s vision in all bodies of executive power.” This is an extremely powerful position that has influence over much of the federal government. And Vought’s climate policy is right in his sights.

Vaught gave his opinion desire to attack government officials who are working to protect public health and tackle the climate crisis, saying: “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly seen as villains. We want their funding shut down so the EPA can’t enforce all the regulations against our energy industry because they don’t have the financial bandwidth to do so. We want to injure them.”

Using Project 2025 to undermine clean energy

In his chapter on Project 2025, Vaught suggests that efforts to combat climate change are nothing more than “social engineering” and promote a shift in the US Global Change Research Program. Now, the poignancy of this particular attack has become apparent when it has been reported that Vought is seeking to undermine the National Climate Assessment, a research program. There is an estimate the main report used by the federal government for policies relating to or related to climate change, the product of research by hundreds of scientists and key to US climate leadership around the world. Vaught is calling on the White House to increase oversight of the Assessment and give OMB a role in selecting the scientists who will prepare the report.

Climate scientist and director of the Center for Science, Sustainability and Media at the University of Pennsylvania Michael Mann told E&E News The new administration’s goal is to “undermine any policy aimed at accelerating the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.” Attacking the National Climate Assessment is a means to that end.

The health and economic well-being of Americans depend on not just continuing, but accelerating our full transition from fossil fuels to clean energy sources, and on addressing the climate crisis in other ways. Undermining the science that underpins all our efforts to address the climate crisis is nothing less than a crisis in itself.

This is Project 2025 in action.

On the campaign trail, Trump did everything he could to distance himself from the people behind him. terribly unpopular Project 2025, saying he has “nothing to do with them” and “no idea” who they are. Now, in addition to Vought, Trump plans to nominate participants in the 2025 project influential positions throughout his reign.

The 2025 blueprint also proposes disbanding the critical National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, describing it as “one of the main drivers of the climate change signaling industry,” and “fully commercializing” the National Weather Service, which resides within NOAA. These scientific agencies allow us to find effective approaches to contain climate catastrophe and warn people about future dangerous weather events.

A week before Election Day, Congresswoman Sarah Jacobs of California published an article in Newsweek under the headline “Project 2025 is an attempted coup d’état on January 6 in a nice suit.” Project 2025 represents not only a coup against democracy and the system of checks and balances, but also the role of our government in solving our country’s problems and America’s leadership in solving the global – chief among them – climate crisis. For the sake of a livable planet and all communities that continue to suffer from extreme climate weather events, the Senate must vote to reject the nominations of Vought and any other Project 2025 nominee.

Ben Jeloz is the executive director of the Sierra Club and a professor of practice at the University of Pennsylvania.

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