On your first one On his first day in office, President Trump signed a slew of executive orders that will put the United States on a radically different environmental path than the Biden administration. The executive orders and memorandums are the first step toward fulfilling many of Trump’s campaign promises: withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement, drilling more oil and natural gas, and repealing many Biden-era environmental directives and departments.
While Trump’s executive orders issued on day one are far-reaching, it is not yet clear how they will be implemented or how quickly their impact will be felt. Executive orders instruct government agencies how to implement the law, but can be challenged in courts if they appear to violate the U.S. Constitution or other laws, as was the case with Trump’s January 2017 travel ban executive order.
But Trump’s executive orders send a clear signal about his administration’s environmental priorities: extracting more fossil fuels, weakening support for green energy and shifting away from global climate leadership.
Withdrawal from the Paris Agreement
This Executive Order directs the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations to submit formal notification of the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The Paris Agreement, signed in 2016, commits countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and submit updates to their climate plans every five years to meet agreed emission reduction targets.
During his first term, Trump also withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement, although the terms of the agreement stipulated that the withdrawal would not take place until November 2020. In one of his first acts as president, Joe Biden urged the United States to rejoin the EU. Paris Agreement. It will take at least a year for the United States to leave the Agreement.
“This shortsighted move shows a disregard for science and the well-being of people around the world, including Americans who are already losing their homes, livelihoods and loved ones to climate change,” says Jonathan Foley, executive director of the climate charity Project Drawdown.
The executive order also rescinds the U.S. International Climate Financing Plan – the Biden administration’s augment in international climate financing to more than $11 billion a year by 2024. “Basically, this is the richest country in the world turning its back on the poorest countries at a time when these suffer the most,” says Bob Ward, director of policy at the Grantham Research Institute at the London School of Economics for climate change and the environment.
Encouraging the extraction of fossil fuels
President Trump has issued three executive orders to make it easier for the United States to exploit its immense reserves of fossil fuels. During the campaign, Trump consistently promised to “drill, baby, drill,” and on the first day of his presidency, he emphasized that slogan by ordering the removal of Biden-era and environmental regulations restricting fossil fuel exploration.
One of the executive orders focuses specifically on Alaska, which has immense reserves of fossil fuels and was the location of Willow, a controversial oil and gas project approved by the Development Board. Biden administration in 2023. Trump’s executive order throws the door wide open to other projects, calling on the United States to “accelerate permitting and leasing of energy and natural resources projects” in Alaska and to rescind any regulations adopted by the Biden administration that may make it more arduous to achieve this goal. Specifically, it also rescinds lease cancellations in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and withdraws the Secretary of the Interior’s order temporarily suspending oil and gas leasing in the refuge.