This analysis was written for the Center by Isabelle Anguelovski. She is an ICREA Research Professor at the Institute of Environmental Sciences and Technology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, the Founder and Director of the Barcelona Lab for Urban Environmental Justice and Sustainability (BCNUEJ), and an Advisory Board Member with the Global Center for Climate Justice.
A Trump II Presidency: Climate and Environmental Justice
Can the future of the environment and climate be saved during a second Trump presidency, especially for those likely to suffer the most? President-elect Trump has often called climate change a “hoax” and Biden’s climate policies a “Green New Scam”. During his first term in office, his administration reversed or significantly altered more than 125 environmental rules. How should we expect (or fear) a second Trump presidency will endanger not only climate policy, but specifically action for environmental and climate justice? We can point to five areas at risk and why these priorities are crucial for the health and climate protection of historically vulnerable or marginalized groups, as well as for ensuring that the green transition prioritizes their needs. Among the most impacted are the very groups who voted for him: Families who make between $30,000 and $49,999 (53%) and Hispanic/Latine residents (46%).
Environmental Justice and Community Health
Environmental justice action and organizing works to ensure that marginalized and low-income communities are not disproportionately affected by pollution and other environmental hazards and to build neighborhoods with accessible parks, adequate public transit, fresh food, and quality affordable housing for all.
The Biden administration took steps to prioritize these communities through initiatives such as Justice40, which aimed to direct 40% of federal investments in pollution reduction, clean energy, and climate resilience toward disadvantaged areas. In 2023, the EPA disbursed $100 million through the Small Grants program for environmental justice, supporting 200 projects throughout the US focused on improving air quality, water safety, and community health.
A second Trump administration will likely dismantle or sideline such programs. During his previous term in office he showed little regard for policies aimed at helping marginalized communities manage environmental burdens. Between 2017 and 2020, the EPA rolled back regulations on mercury and soot which have been shown to contaminate low-income and minority residents living next to those industrial zones. Trump’s appointments to the EPA and other agencies, including Scott Pruitt who rolled back the Clean Power Plan, further reflected his deregulatory stance.
If a second Trump administration follows negationist policy proposals such as those in Project 2025, as many fear, it could undo EPA findings such as those demonstrating that carbon dioxide emissions are a threat to human health, and then further roll back on industrial contaminant regulations.
Renewable Energy and Green Jobs
Trump’s previous administration opened public lands to oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. However, a transition to renewable energy is critical for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and creating sustainable jobs away from fossil fuels. During the Biden administration, through legislation such as the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act and its tax credits and other incentives, clean energy job growth has increased at roughly twice the pace of US employment overall, especially in rural areas with many working-class residents.
A full repeal of the law is unlikely because Republicans’ control over the House of Representatives will be limited and many Republican lawmakers hail from districts in states like Pennsylvania or Ohio where many clean energy jobs are located. But Trump could certainly instruct the Treasury Department to amend, suspend, or delay tax credits, through an amendment of how rules are calculated and funds disbursed. He will also likely attempt to reduce investments in renewable energy and shift support back to traditional energy sources, undermining job growth and security for the working-class in renewable energy sectors.
Climate Resilience, Disaster Preparedness, and Recovery
Climate action and justice also encompasses resilience from disasters. Since 2022, the pace and strength of extreme weather events have intensified. Disasters such as wildfires, hurricanes, floods, and droughts have immense human and economic costs for working-class communities with little capacity to adapt and recover. To add insult, these are often the communities where the least investments in resilience have historically taken place.
Through the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Congress allocated $47 billion for communities at high risk from natural disasters, helping for example, to strengthen flood defenses and heat-resistant housing, in low-income areas. In contrast, Trump’s approach to disasters often manifested through delayed responses and inadequate resources for hardest-hit areas, including Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico in 2017. That same year, he rescinded the Federal Flood Risk Management Standard, which required infrastructure projects to account for climate change – particularly tragic for working-class residents living in flood zones.
His second presidential term risks further weakening flood and other risk protection standards and cutting FEMA’s Pre-Disaster Mitigation Program, as Trump proposed in 2018, which would leave economically disadvantaged communities under-protected and under-supported during disasters.
Scientific Integrity and Environmental Data
A critical dimension of environmental and climate justice is the use of accurate, science-based data to inform policy decisions. During his first mandate, Trump censored scientific data on government websites, including 1,400 changes to agency websites and removing scientific data on water pollution or climate change. This disregard for scientific findings weakened the ability of lawmakers and agencies to make decisions that account for environmental and public health implications.
Without reliable and traceable data, polluters won’t be accountable when harming populations, especially communities of color and working-class neighborhoods that often have few resources to defend themselves when faced with air or water contamination as shown in places such as Flint, MI. Those communities, and the researchers and policymakers that support and represent them, need reliable and rigorous scientific data to inform governmental agency decision-making.
Global Climate Justice and Climate Agreements
Last, climate injustices and a lack of leadership on climate in the US affect communities and nations well beyond US borders. Under Biden, the US came back into the Paris Agreement after Trump’s withdrawal in 2017. Trump’s victory will likely see the US exit from the agreement again, weakening global commitments to limiting global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. For nations in the Global South and their most vulnerable residents, a new withdrawal will likely translate into less financial support for adaptation and a higher exposure to sea level rise, storms, floods and food insecurity.
In short, under a second Trump administration, a rollback on national and international policy commitments would deepen inequalities towards the green transition and against climate disasters, exposing millions to jobs insecurity, further environmental degradation, and a weaker preparation against and recovery from extreme water.
It is important to fully understand the scope of what is likely under Trump's second term so that our movements are most prepared to respond to these injustices, protect our wins through organizing and legal means, and build power whenever and wherever we can.
