International Leadership on the Environment: Sinking Fast
With the Republican Party recapturing the White House and Congress in 2025, the conservative Heritage Foundation already has the answer to America’s climate problems. It is a “battle plan” for the first 180 days of a Republican in the White House. Called Project 2025, it would lead to “dismantling almost every clean energy program in the federal government and boosting the production of fossil fuels,” reported journalist Lisa Friedman. Project 2025 calls for “shredding regulations to curb greenhouse gas pollution from cars, oil and gas wells and power plants, dismantling almost every clean energy program in the federal government and boosting the production of fossil fuels.” The nearly 1,000-page plan was created by the Heritage Foundation, working closely with at least a dozen conservative and climate-denying think thanks and advocacy groups like the Heartland Institute or the Competitive Enterprise Institute. The plan called for the repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act with its landmark climate change programs. “This agenda would be laughable if the consequences of it weren’t so dire,” said Christy Goldfuss, chief policy impact officer for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Source: Lisa Friedman, “A Republican 2024 Climate Strategy: More Drilling, Less Clean Energy,” New York Times, August 4, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/04/climate/republicans-climate-project2025.html.
President Trump signed an Executive Order titled “Putting America First in International Environmental Agreements.” This withdraws the US from the Paris Climate Accord Trump in his first term had withdrawn the US from the Paris agreement; then Biden promptly returned the US to the Paris agreement. The Executive Order also cancelled the Biden International Climate finance plan.