As Donald Trump takes his oath of office to become the 47th president of the United States, his second term comes at an ever-more critical t
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Excerpt from this story from DeSmog Blog:
Donald Trump is a firm friend of the fossil fuel industry. In his first term, the Republican withdrew the U.S. from the flagship 2015 Paris Agreement, and has pledged to do so once again.
During his inauguration speech on 20 January, Trump declared a “national energy emergency” and promised to “drill, baby, drill” for new fossil fuels. His plans could add an extra four billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent to U.S. emissions by 2030, according to the climate publication Carbon Brief. Trump received more than $32 million from the oil and gas sector for his 2024 campaign.
Trump’s election coincides with that of Kemi Badenoch as Conservative Party leader, who received money towards her campaign from a director of the oil major Chevron. Badenoch is a self-described “net zero sceptic” who has warned the UK’s 2050 emissions reduction target could “bankrupt the country”.
Badenoch recently went on a tour of North America during which she rubbed shoulders with a number of fellow net zero sceptics, including Canadian Conservative leader and presumptive prime minister-in-waiting Pierre Poilievre, who has voted against environmental measures almost 400 times during his two decades in politics.
However, Badenoch still has a way to go before she rivals the North American network of her right-wing rival Nigel Farage, who leads Reform UK. Farage, who claims that CO2 is plant food and wants to see net zero scrapped, was part of the trusted entourage that spent election night in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida.
Although these leaders do not agree on every policy, they share a broad opposition to net zero and support the continued expansion of fossil fuel production – at the expense of global climate ambitions.
“President Trump is promising a range of extreme policies and actions, particularly on climate change,” said Bob Ward of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics.
“It is well known that a handful of British politicians, including Nigel Farage and Liz Truss, and lobby groups, such as the Global Warming Policy Foundation, worship Trump and his extremist agenda, and will be doing their best to promote it on this side of the Atlantic.
“But Trump’s agenda will be a disaster for America and the world.”
