Trump’s first day executive order will worsen the climate crisis

In his first day in the office, President Trump signed a slew of executive orders that set the United States on a radically different environmental path than the The Biden administration. The executive order and memos take the first steps toward fulfilling many of Trump’s campaign promises: Withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreementdrilling for more oil and natural gas, and repealing many Biden-era environmental directives and departments.

While Trump’s first-day executive order is far-reaching, it’s not yet clear how they will be implemented or how quickly they will be felt. The executive order directs government agencies how to implement the law, but can be challenged by courts if they appear to violate the US Constitution or other laws, as happened with the executive order’s travel ban. Trump in January 2017.

Trump’s executive order, however, sends a clear signal about his administration’s environmental priorities: Extracting more fossil fuels, weakening support for green energyand step away from global climate leadership.

Withdrawal from the Paris Agreement

This executive order directs the United States ambassador to the United Nations to submit formal notification that the United States is withdrawing from the Paris Agreement under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The Paris Agreement, signed in 2016, commits countries to reduce greenhouse emissions and present five-yearly updates on their climate plans to achieve the agreed objectives in reducing emissions.

In his first term, Trump also withdrew the United States from the Paris AgreementAlthough the terms of the agreement meant that the withdrawal did not take place until November 2020. In one of his first acts as president, Joe Biden had the United States reunited with the Paris Agreement. It will take at least a year for the United States to leave the Agreement.

“This short-sighted move shows a disregard for science and the well-being of people around the world, including Americans, who are already losing their homeslivelihoods, and loved ones as a result of climate change,” says Jonathan Foley, executive director of climate charity Project Drawdown.

The executive order also cancels the United States’ International Climate Finance Plan – a Biden administration increase in international climate finance that has reached more than $11 billion a year by 2024. “Essentially it is the country the richest countries in the world are turning their backs on the poorest countries at a time when they are suffering the most,” says Bob Ward, director of policy at the London School of Economics’ Grantham Research Institute on climate change and the environment.

It encourages the extraction of fossil fuels

President Trump has dedicated three executive orders to make it easier for the United States to exploit its vast reserves of fossil fuels. On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly promised to “drill, baby, drill” and on his first day as president he underlined this sloganeering with orders to remove Biden-era regulations and environmental regulations that limit fossil fuel exploration.

An executive order specifically focuses on Alaska, which has vast fossil fuel reserves and was the location for Willow – a controversial oil and gas project approved by the The Biden administration in 2023. Trump’s executive order opens the door wide to other projects, calling on the United States to “expedite the permitting and leasing of energy and natural resource projects” in Alaska and the revocation of any regulations passed by the administration Biden who can prevent this goal. It also specifically waives the cancellation of leasing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and withdraws an order from the Secretary of the Interior that temporarily halts oil and gas leasing in the Refuge.