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| President Trump. Image: Gage Skidmore CCBYSA 2.0 |
Several weeks ago, I was walking along Avenida Paulista in São Paulo. Through the noise of the traffic, the familiar shout of one man’s name could be heard. ‘Trump, Trump, Trump’ echoed across the street. Somehow I had stumbled upon a ‘Brazilians for Trump’ rally. A group of 40 people stood on the pavement, clutching signs that read ‘Women for Trump’, ‘Jews for Trump’, ‘Gays for Trump’. This struck me; such demographics holding such signage represented for me a similar message to ‘trees for deforestation’.
Yet, the votes are in. The electoral tally has been made and
one fact is obvious: Donald Trump’s popularity transcended demography. As,
House Speaker, Paul
Ryan has said, Trump “heard a voice out in this country that no one else
heard. He connected in ways with people that no one else did. He turned
politics on its head.”
Key here is not only Trump’s victory, but also how the
Republican Party has been able to ride his coattails
to majorities across both the Senate and the House of Representatives. In doing
so, the Grand Old Party (GOP), working with Trump, will likely have the freedom
to pursue their political agenda. As a result, the Republican platform,
published at the 2016 National Convention, provides a number of clues of what
we can expect from this new administration.
From this document, it is possible to profile what a Trump
administration would mean for US environmental policy. I have previously
written blogs of a similar vein for the UK
2015 election and the recent transfer of power in Brazil
and it seems only fair that I cast my eye to the United States.
In its platform,
the GOP pledge a return to coal as an energy resource, with it described as
“abundant, clean, affordable, [and] reliable.” It is likely that the extraction
and use of this resource will increase, with federal lands opened up for coal
mining, as well as oil and gas drilling. President Obama’s Clean
Power Plan will be withdrawn and restriction on the development of nuclear
energy likely be lifted. The anxiety of this turn from renewables can be found
in the falling
stocks of wind and solar companies since Trump’s win.
Furthermore, the President-Elect has already vowed
to cancel the recent Paris Climate Agreement. For Trump, climate change is manufactured
by the Chinese government and/or an expensive
hoax. This rhetoric is matched by many in the Republican Party (who can
forget Senator James Inhofe’s snowball routine?) A
solid majority in the House will allow for the continued harassment of climate
science by individual politicians, such as Representative Lamar
Smith, who has previously argued
that climate scientists manipulate data to show that the planet is warming.
As has been argued elsewhere,
the United States cannot officially leave the Paris agreement until November
2020 (conveniently coinciding with a potential Trump re-election bid.) However,
there is another way: to leave the UNFCCC entirely, immediately after taking
office. In doing so, a Trump administration could – hypothetically – leave both
agreements by January 2018. The political message of such action would be
clear: policies of climate change mitigation restrict the opportunities for
further American development and must be removed if the Trump administration is
to meet its oft-repeated target
of 4% GDP growth.
This tension between sustainability and growth is also
evident in the likely elimination of a number of regulations related to
environmental health. The Environmental Protection Agency will be restricted
to an advisory role, with its responsibility for regulation of CO2 removed.
Trump has previously mentioned Myron
Ebell, a prominent climate denier, as a potential head of this
organisation.
Regardless of who is in charge, air and water regulations
will likely be kerbed, with Vox
reporting that regulations at risk include those related to mercury pollution,
smog, and coal ash. Such policies are perceived as a hindrance to ultimate
goals of job creation and economic growth. Yet, as the Sierra
Club have argued, this restriction of regulation will likely “imperil clean
air and clean water for all Americans.”
Such actions will also open up questions of environmental
racism. In the United States, people of colour face the effects of pollution disproportionately.
As a result, an attack on environmental regulation promises consequences that
will migrate into different policy sectors. Furthermore, this is occurring in
the shadow of the Flint
water crisis: an episode which exposed issues of environmental racism in
the country. With the restriction of regulation, it is likely that Flint will
cease to be an outlier.
The Washington Post has argued that, these plans will “reverse decades of U.S. energy
and climate policy” and recent
analysis has shown that such policies will raise US greenhouse gas emissions
by 16% by the end of Trump’s (potential) eight year term.
However, the language of the GOP platform cautions against
such assertions. Within this document, environmental campaigners become ‘environmental
extremists’. The document seeks to depoliticise environmental issues, with, in
their words, environmental regulation being “too important to be left to
radical environmentalists. They are using yesterday’s tools to control a future
they do not comprehend.” Remember, these words have been written at the time of
the militarized
action against the water protectors of Standing
Rock. Such a language suggests that we can expect more aggression against
environmental defenders in the future.
The victory of Trump, and of the GOP, not only represents a
change in the political landscape but also a likely transformation of the
physical one too. It, as some
argue, may come to represent a serious challenge to the environmental
health of the planet itself.
Writing this, my mind has been drawn back to those campaign
signs in São Paulo. ‘Women for Trump’, ‘Gays for Trump’, Jews for Trump’. Yet
one thing is certain under this new President: the trees are most definitely
for deforestation.
This blog was written by Cabot Institute member, Ed Atkins, A PhD student in the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies.