The US is about to make a sharp turn on climate policy

Trump’s election means the next four years are going to look very different.

composite of Donald Trump with a sky full of emissions clouds

Photo Illustration: Stephanie Arnett/MIT Technology Review | Getty, Adobe Stock

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here.

Voters have elected Donald Trump to a second term in the White House.

In the days leading up to the election, I kept thinking about what four years means for climate change right now. We’re at a critical moment that requires decisive action to rapidly slash greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants, transportation, industry, and the rest of the economy if we’re going to achieve our climate goals.

The past four years have seen the US take climate action seriously, working with the international community and pumping money into solutions. Now, we’re facing a period where things are going to be very different. A Trump presidency will have impacts far beyond climate, but for the sake of this newsletter, we’ll stay focused on what four years means in the climate fight as we start to make sense of this next chapter.

Joe Biden arguably did more to combat climate change than any other American president. One of his first actions in office was rejoining the Paris climate accord—Trump pulled out of the international agreement to fight climate change during his first term in office. Biden then quickly set a new national goal to cut US carbon emissions in half, relative to their peak, by 2030.

The Environmental Protection Agency rolled out rules for power plants to slash pollution that harms both human health and the climate. The agency also announced new regulations for vehicle emissions to push the country toward EVs.

And the cornerstone of the Biden years has been unprecedented climate investment. A trio of laws—the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act—pumped hundreds of billions of dollars into infrastructure and research, much of it on climate.

What, exactly, Trump can do will depend on whether Republicans take control of both houses of Congress. A clean sweep would open up more lanes for targeting legislation passed under Biden. (As of sending this email, Republicans have secured enough seats to control the Senate, but the House is uncertain and could be for days or even weeks.)

I don’t think the rug will be entirely pulled out from under the IRA—portions of the investment from the law are beginning to pay off, and the majority of the money has gone to Republican districts. But there will certainly be challenges to pieces, especially the EV tax credits, which Trump has been laser-focused on during the campaign.

This all adds up to a very different course on climate than what many had hoped we might see for the rest of this decade.

A Trump presidency could add 4 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere by 2030 over what was expected from a second Biden term, according to an analysis published in April by the website Carbon Brief (this was before Biden dropped out of the race). That projection sees emissions under Trump dropping by 28% below the peak by the end of the decade—nowhere near the 50% target set by Biden at the beginning of his term.

The US, which is currently the world’s second-largest greenhouse-gas emitter and has added more climate pollution to the atmosphere than any other nation, is now very unlikely to hit Biden’s 2030 goal. That’s basically the final nail in the coffin for efforts to limit global warming to 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) over preindustrial levels.

In the days, weeks, and years ahead we’ll be covering what this change will mean for efforts to combat climate change and to protect the most vulnerable from the dangerous world we’re marching toward—indeed, already living in. Stay tuned for more from us.

Now read the rest of The Spark

Another thing

Jennifer Doudna, one of the inventors of the gene-editing tool CRISPR, says the tech could be a major tool to help address climate change and deal with the growing risks of our changing world.

The hope is that CRISPR’s ability to chop out specific pieces of DNA will make it faster and easier to produce climate-resilient crops and livestock, while avoiding the pitfalls of previous attempts to tweak the genomes of plants and animals. Read the full story from my colleague James Temple.

Keeping up with climate

Startup Redoxblox is building a technology that’s not exactly a thermal battery, but it’s not not a thermal battery either. The company raised just over $30 million to build its systems, which store energy in both heat and chemical bonds. (Heatmap)

It’s been a weird fall in the US Northeast—a rare drought has brought a string of wildfires, and New York City is seeing calls to conserve water. (New York Times)

It’s been bumpy skies this week for electric-plane startups. Beta Technologies raised over $300 million in funding, while Lilium may be filing for insolvency soon. (Canary Media)

→ The runway for futuristic electric planes is still a long one. (MIT Technology Review)

Meta’s plan to build a nuclear-powered AI data center has been derailed by a rare species of bee living on land earmarked for the project. (Financial Times)

The atmospheric concentration of methane—a powerful greenhouse gas—has been mysteriously climbing since 2007, and that growth nearly doubled in 2020. Now scientists may have finally figured out the culprits: microbes in wetlands that are getting warmer and wetter. (Washington Post)

Greenhouse-gas emissions from the European Union fell by 8% in 2023. The drop is thanks to efforts to shut down coal-fired power plants and generate more electricity from renewables like solar and wind. (The Guardian)

Four electric school buses could help officials figure out how to charge future bus fleets. A project in Brooklyn will aim to use onsite renewables and smart charging to control the costs and grid stress of EV charging depots. (Canary Media)