Donald Trump: How climate change ‘hoax’ believer plans to dig, burn and potentially warm the planet

Gutting the Environmental Protection Agency and clawing back funds allocated from Joe Biden’s landmark climate bill are high on the agenda for President-elect Donald Trump’s second presidency.

According to NASA scientists, Earth’s average surface was the hottest on record last year.

The science was made viscerally real for America’s largest state, California, with devastating fires burning tens of thousands of hectares of land in Greater Los Angeles and killing dozens.

But the president-elect, who will officially return to the world’s most powerful office on January 20, has referred to climate change as a “scam” and a “hoax”.

His Energy Secretary pick Chris Wright had previously described intensifying wildfires as “hype”, but recently told his senate confirmation hearings that he accepted humans burning fossil fuels was the leading cause of climate change.

Mr Trump for his part has blamed Democratic environmental policies for the severity of the fires.

The United States is the highest per capita greenhouse gas emitter and the second highest emitter overall, behind China.

Months into his first term, Mr Trump pulled the US out of the landmark Paris Agreement, which has a long-term goal of keeping global temperature rises below 2 °C.

President Biden signed an executive order reversing the decision, but that move is expected to be reversed again by the incoming administration.

Mr Trump has also vowed to unwind his predecessor’s signature bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, a key part of which was close to $100 billion in clean energy subsidies.

The president-elect described the bill as a “green new scam” and promised to “rescind all of the unspent funds”.

The dying days of Biden’s presidency has seen the outgoing administration move at a rapid clip to allocate, and thus safeguard, the money appropriated, but about $20 billion remains vulnerable.

The 45th and soon-to-be 47th president has also promised to ramp up domestic fossil fuel production, currently at record highs under Biden.

“We will... unleash America’s $50 trillion in untapped shale, oil, and natural gas reserves, plus hundreds of years in clean coal reserves,” his energy plan states.

That agenda is also likely to put the work of the EPA in jeopardy, with the Supreme Court already curtailing the environmental agency’s power in recent decisions.

Despite Mr Trump’s views on climate change, some environmental groups such as Australia’s Climate Council are hopeful that progress will continue.

Global investment in clean energy was almost twice that of fossil fuels in 2024.

The Climate Council expects the trend to be unstoppable regardless of the incoming president’s views.

“This is a historic mega-trend and will continue with or without American leadership,” they said.

Even within the US, Climate Council expects progress will continue, with much of the IRA climate money going to Republican districts, making the politics more complicated.

“New factories for batteries and electric vehicles will still go ahead under the Mr Trump administration,” the group said.

“After all, entrepreneur Elon Musk – who is expected to join the Mr Trump administration – makes electric vehicles.”