When Donald Trump was sworn in as US President on January 20, 2025, one of his first acts in office was to remove the US from the Paris Climate Agreement. A year later, the US exit becomes official on Tuesday.
Over the past 12 months, the White House has repeatedly criticized climate protection: wind turbines are “ruining the landscape.” Solar systems are “ugly,” but coal is “beautiful,” Trump said. At the United Nations, he called climate change a “hoax” and warned the world’s countries to stop protecting the climate, “otherwise your country will fail“.
But Trump talks a lot and actions don’t always follow. What is the status of climate protection in the USA?
“It’s really bad,” Lori Bird said. She is director of the energy department at the US think tank World Resources Institute. “But the renewables industry has momentum.” Renewable energies are also the most efficient source of electricity in the USA and can be built faster than fossil power plants. In Republican-governed Texas, wind and solar power generate power almost twice as much electricity like in democratically governed California, because land is cheap and sunny. “But there are a lot of obstacles in the way of renewables,” says Bird.
Threat to global wind power
In summer Trump’s Republicans scrapped the Inflation Reduction Actwhich provided gigantic sums of money for solar and wind projects as well as electric cars under President Joe Biden. Funding for solar and wind projects was canceled from 2027, and subsidies for electric cars from September last year.
“In some states, funding was even withdrawn from projects that were already under construction,” says Bird. The project sponsors are suing and legal proceedings are ongoing. How this will turn out is uncertain: Five huge offshore wind farms off the east coast of the USA initially had to interrupt construction because the US federal government withdrew their permits.
Both the project Empire Wind the Norwegian oil company Equinor as well Revolution Wind the Danish company Ørsted and a wind farm owned by a Virginia company However, after the intervention of a federal court, they are now allowed to continue building, even if their lawsuits against the withdrawal of the permits have not yet been decided.
Trump’s attacks are causing problems for the offshore industry worldwide, even though he is losing in court. “Uncertainty in offshore markets could drive up the cost of capital as investors price in higher risks,” worried Henrik Andersen told the Financial Times. He is CEO of the wind turbine manufacturer Vestas and chairman of the WindEurope industry association. “When there is disruption in one part of the industry, everyone starts asking themselves, ‘Could this affect us too?’”
US emissions increased in 2025
Despite it planned project sponsorsto bring nearly 60 gigawatts of new solar, wind and battery storage capacity online by the end of last year, more than 90 percent of all new power generation capacity in the United States. There is no data yet on the actual connections. By 2030 there should be 195 gigawatts – but there will also be almost 40 gigawatts of new climate-damaging gas power plants. “We will see more gas-fired power plants, a lot more,” says Bird.
The rapidly growing appetite for electricity from the AI data center boom is ensuring that all types of electricity generation are in high demand, not just the climate-friendly ones. The Trump administration is even trying to invest millions to keep outdated and expensive coal-fired power plants alive.
Accordingly, CO₂ emissions in the USA increased by 2.4 percent last year instead of falling as in 2023 and 2024. In addition to the AI’s hunger for energy according to estimates from the Rhodium Group think tank The cold winter in the north of the USA also contributes to growing CO₂ emissions because people there often still use gas and other fossil fuels for heating.
The Trump administration sees itself as a concierge for oil and gas
Lori Bird, World Resources Institute
Lori Bird calls the federal government’s energy policy “worryingly anti-business.” The Trump administration “blocks permits for renewables, but sees itself as a concierge for oil and gas.” Large tech companies and 29 US states still have goals and regulations to convert their electricity mix to renewables. “But it’s a challenging environment.”
Trump attacks disaster protection
In addition, Trump’s extreme right-wing government is also attacking disaster protection, which is linked to the continued use of coal, oil and gas and the resulting increasing global warming is becoming more and more important – after all, the costliest forest fires of all time, which destroyed parts of Los Angeles in January 2025, were also fueled by climate change.
The Natural Disaster Coordination Center FEMA lost a third of its employees and left according to ABC television Heading into hurricane season without a plan purely coincidentally harmless for the USA went. With the floods in Texas exacerbated by climate change over 100 people killedFEMA didn’t cut a good figure either. And before one of the most violent storms in the history of the state of Alaska could according to the British Guardian Probably not warned earlier because the weather balloon network there was only partially in operation due to a lack of staff.