Ember Duke | layout editor

In the limbo between presidents, the Biden administration can still use its authority to secure policies in an attempt to curb swift changes when President-Elect Donald Trump takes office.

Trump has promised to scale back climate protection policies, sparking a rush from the current administration and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to protect policies and push through more before Jan. 20, according to The Washington Post.

John Stolz, director of the environmental and energy engineering department at Duquesne, emphasized the need to reduce carbon emissions, which causes a greenhouse effect and rising global temperature. The U.S. is in the top four producers of carbon emissions and is historically one of the worst climate polluters, according to CNN.

A tax on carbon would incentivise corporations to emit less, said Stolz. It would benefit companies fiscally by lowering their bottom lines and benefiting employees, he said.

“Putting value on carbon would move the needle on making companies more aware,” he said.

In 2022, Congress approved The Inflation Reduction Act — an unprecedented bill which dictated $370 billion for climate protections, according to the Biden administration’s Building A Clean Energy Economy guidebook, which breaks down the bill. It implemented tax credits for consumers buying electric vehicles or home energy efficiency changes, fees for high-polluting companies and funding to speed up green energy sources like solar panels.

Mark Drajem, senior press officer at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the efforts and standards from the EPA — which is made of members appointed by the president — on emissions, methane leaks and green energy have been historic.

“The Biden administration has been the most impressive actor on climate action in the history of the U.S.,” Drajem said.

This year is predicted to be the hottest on record, with a global mean air temperature of 1.54 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average, according to the World Meteorological Organization. Scientists, including those working with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, have previously warned that exceeding 1.5 degrees would be detrimental.

In his first term, Trump enacted several policies which curbed efforts to oppose climate pollution and greenhouse gasses, according to The Washington Post. He also removed the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement in his first term and would again in his second term, according to Politico.

“What we saw in the first Trump administration is that he moved to gut the regulations that were in place at that time. He said on the campaign trail that he wants to do that again,” Drajem said.

Many issues regarding climate and environment are decided at the state level, said David Kahler, associate professor of environmental and energy engineering at Duquesne, citing as an example Pennsylvania and New York have different regulations on fracking, despite being so geographically close to each other.

This makes for complexities in what the president is allowed to do regarding widespread climate policies, he said.

“[Inflation Reduction Act] was shepherded along by the Biden administration, but it passed Congress. So a new administration can’t actually change it easily … Congress would have to change it. Which is possible [but] it’s how the administration would invest the funds from the Inflation Reduction Act,” Kahler said.

Functioning under the executive branch, the EPA is a federal agency which oversees human health and the environment. It is made up of careered individuals, like scientists and researchers as well as appointed officials, including the organization’s chief, Kahler said.

Trump said he will appoint Lee Zeldin, former New York congressman, to head the EPA in his upcoming term, as reported by multiple news outlets.

Kahler said it is difficult to tell what the new administration will do as “Trump is a little bit hard to read on specifics,” but his concern is that science and climate research should remain objective.

“What I’m worried about is that second part, if all of a sudden, your career scientist is fired and replaced with a political appointee whose job literally is to do what the President wants them to do,” Kahler said.

Despite Trump’s anticipated efforts at scaling back climate protections, the fight for a clean environment isn’t over both nationally and internationally, said Drajem.

“Countries around the world are saying that they’re not going to step back from dealing with this problem … [NRDC] sued the Trump administration, on average, once every 10 days for actions that it took that were harmful to public health and the environment, and we were successful in 90% of the cases that were resolved,” Drajem said. “Our lawyers are ready.”

A common point against climate action is its economic detriments. However, Drajem and Stolz both said green energy creates jobs.

“Jobs are being created around the country, especially and notably in red states like Georgia and Kentucky because of this law,” Drajem said. “Trump has said he wants to get rid of it, but senators and congressmen are going to decide whether they want to do that.

Though changes at the federal and corporate level are crucial, there are steps the average person can take to benefit the environment, Stolz said. Promoting local farming, cutting down on consumption and being more aware of issues is a start.

“The misnomer is there’s nothing we can do about this,” Stolz said.

It’s the “totality” of all actions, legislatively and otherwise, that leads to environmental benefit, he said.
 “Technically, it’s possible for us to transition to clean energy, but it requires, not just investment in clean energy sources, but it also includes investment in updating our grid,” he said.