President Donald Trump, in a flurry of climate and energy-related orders on Monday, made it clear he wants to turn his back on nearly a decade of climate action and smooth the way for the fossil fuel industry in the United States.
On his first day in office, Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement, an international treaty that aims to drive down planet-warming carbon emissions. It was adopted by 196 countries at the COP21 climate conference in 2015 and took effect in November 2016.
Leaving the Paris Agreement is the first step toward freeing the U.S. from any constraints to achieve Trump’s promise to “Drill, baby drill.”
Coming into office following the two hottest years in recorded history, Trump has declared a national energy emergency to boost oil and gas production, lifted a moratorium on gas exports and undone several orders issued by former president Joe Biden on the environment and clean technology.
Here’s a closer look at some of Trump’s early moves that could redefine global climate action and put more pressure on a planet that’s already seeing climate disasters unfold at an unprecedented scale.
What is a national energy emergency?
Trump’s declaration of a national energy emergency — a first for the U.S. — was mentioned in his inaugural speech at the U.S. Capitol on Monday. The purpose of the emergency, according to the executive order that he signed, is to speed up approvals and construction of energy and natural resources projects.
The U.S. is currently the largest crude oil producer in the world and has generated more oil than any nation at any time for the past six years, according to government statistics.
“I think that this is a big show, and [the U.S. is] producing … probably at the max rate that they can for what demand is,” said Frances Colón, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a non-partisan policy institute in Washington, D.C. She was a science and environment adviser at the U.S. State Department when Barack Obama was president.
Colón said the U.S. doesn’t really have an energy emergency due to huge amounts of fossil fuel extraction and massive investments in the clean energy transition. Despite Trump’s order, she said, there will be pressure to continue to move away from oil and gas.
“People want cheaper energy. People want cleaner air. People want to really have a difference made in how they face the challenges that climate is bringing into their lives,” Colón said.
The emergency orders could give the new administration the tools to keep aging coal and nuclear power plants running, and temporarily suspend rules on some fuels, said Glenn Schwartz, director of energy policy at Washington-based analysis firm Rapidan Energy Group.
“Emergency authority does not appear to allow Trump to significantly increase energy production or fast-track approvals for infrastructure or refinery permits,” Schwartz said in a memo about the Trump orders.
“Market conditions, not regulatory or permitting environments, will drive oil and gas production decisions.”
Pulling out of the Paris Agreement
Trump is pulling the U.S. out of the 2015 Paris Agreement on fighting climate change, throwing the future of nearly a decade of concerted climate diplomacy into uncertainty.
Climate groups have been bracing for the move since Trump won the presidential election in November because of his hostility to the agreement and his decision to withdraw during his first term in the White House following the 2016 election.
Trump signed an order in 2017 withdrawing from the climate agreement, but the rules prevented countries from leaving within the first three years of signing the deal, and they then had to wait another year to fully leave.
The U.S. only officially exited the agreement near the end of 2020, and it stayed out only four months before Biden was elected president in 2020. He returned the country to the agreement on his first day in office in January 2021. This time, however, Trump will have to wait only the one year that’s required after giving notice of withdrawal, meaning the U.S. could be out of the agreement as early as January 2026.
“The United States is taking up an isolationist role, and it’s at a time with so many other transboundary challenges that we’re facing in terms of environmental issues and others,” said Max Boykoff, a fellow at the Co-operative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, a research body at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he’s also a professor.
The goal of the Paris Agreement is to limit global warming to well below 2Â CÂ above pre-industrial levels, and ideally to 1.5 C. In 2024, the average global temperature likely hit that threshold, signalling that the world is on the edge of surpassing the Paris limits.
At the same time, since the agreement was reached, it has helped the world make significant strides in bringing down future temperatures — driving climate investments, putting a spotlight on climate science and leading to many other related initiatives over the past decade on protecting nature, monitoring emissions and compensating countries for climate losses.
As part of the agreement, countries had to release increasingly ambitious climate plans every five years. It led the U.S, under Biden, to set an ambitious target of reducing its carbon emissions by 61 to 66 per cent below 2005 levels in 2035, putting the country on a trajectory of net-zero emissions by 2050.
While the future of that climate target is now in question, Boykoff said the U.S could continue to move forward with Trump in office.
“In the previous Trump administration, actually, decarbonization continued and there actually was a slight reduction in carbon-based contributions to the atmosphere,” he said.
Lifting the lid on liquefied natural gas
Biden had put a pause on approving new export permits for liquefied natural gas — the form in which gas is exported on tanker ships — so that the government could study the environmental and economic impacts of the industry.
The U.S. is the world’s largest exporter of LNG, with most of it going to Europe. Trump signed an order that directs the government to immediately resume processing new export permits.
In December, the U.S. Energy Department released its study on the impacts of LNG exports. A key finding of the analysis was that the amount of gas exports already approved is likely enough to meet the global demand for LNG from the U.S. well into the future. Unfettered LNG exports would also increase domestic gas prices by over 30 per cent, costing households more on their utility bills, according to the analysis.
In a statement, the American Gas Association said, “We applaud President Trump’s decisive action to maximize the benefits from our nation’s abundant and essential energy.” The industry group supports lifting the pause on LNG exports, including as a way to support U.S. allies — LNG from the U.S. has helped European countries move away from Russian gas during the war in Ukraine.