Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Politics

The Next Four Years Will Be a Fight. Embrace It.

Conflict is clarifying.

Donald Trump.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

When Donald Trump was inaugurated in 2017, millions of people participated in hundreds of marches around the country and the world to demonstrate their commitment in the new cause of resistance. No such large-scale protests are materializing for next January 20; those who hoped Trump would lose the presidential election now seem more demoralized than defiant.

That reaction is understandable. After a period of progress and optimism about the future, and even as the climate crisis grows more dire, we are in for a difficult four years. As Jesse Jenkins wrote just after the election, the outcome “dealt a devastating blow to U.S. efforts to cut climate-warming pollution.”

But for those feeling despair, there is a way forward: Embrace the fight. Sometimes politics is about compromise, sometimes it’s about patience, and sometimes it’s about righteous fury. This time, fury may be just what’s called for.

There’s no doubt that some very bad vibrations will emanate from Washington. Trump is arriving with the Project 2025 blueprint in hand, ready to undermine climate progress in every corner of government. Key agencies will be led by a veritable murderer’s row of fossil fuel enthusiasts, from the fracking executive who will helm the Department of Energy to the “all-of-the-above” enthusiast who will lead both the Department of the Interior and the new National Energy Council, the goal of which is to achieve what Trump calls, in all caps, “ENERGY DOMINANCE.”

As far as Trump is concerned, “dominance” comes not from wimpy renewables but from pounding holes in the ground and burning what comes out of them, the manly pursuit of those whose hearts beat faster at the thought of America’s foes kneeling in submission before our virile power. And it comes from reversing whatever Joe Biden did, not because Trump necessarily cares whether consumers get subsidies to buy heat pumps, but because undoing his predecessor’s legacy shows that Trump is a winner and everyone else is a loser.

As much as some would like us to believe that by giving Trump one of the narrowest presidential victories in history the voters were explicitly rejecting the Biden administration’s climate policies in favor of Trump’s fossil fuel agenda, there is no evidence that’s true. As much as we would have liked it to be otherwise, most polls showed climate change ranking low when people were asked what decided their vote. Indeed, the most persuasive explanation for the election outcome is that all over the world, voters have turned out whichever party was in power when the wave of post-pandemic inflation hit; Kamala Harris nearly overcame that anti-incumbent wave, but wasn’t able to in the end.

So while Trump may not have much of a “mandate” in general, he certainly doesn’t have one to reverse the progress the country has made on climate. That means the politics of opposing the administration’s climate efforts are in advocates’ favor. At the very least, there is plenty of room to persuade the public that the Trump administration is doing something awful on climate.

Embracing the fight will mean acknowledging that while bipartisanship is sometimes an effective tool, it isn’t an end in itself. Republicans should certainly be welcomed as allies whenever they want to join in defending climate progress or pushing back on efforts to undermine it, but the days when Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich would film an ad together pledging their commitment to address climate change are long behind us. It would be nice if there was a consensus on the need to transition off of fossil fuels, but there isn’t. Instead, there’s a climate assault on its way, and while appeals to the self-interest of some Republicans (such as those politicians whose districts are benefiting enormously from clean energy investments) are possible, a battle is more likely.

That isn’t a bad thing. Conflicts are energizing — they clarify stakes, focus media attention, and motivate people to get involved. And just as many climate advocates realized that warnings of doom (even accurate ones) are often less effective than an optimistic vision of a future of abundance, we should also understand that one of the most powerful arguments in politics is that someone is trying to take something away from you. Which is exactly what Trump will likely do, and when it happens, people ought to be mad about it.

This fight will take place both in Washington and between the Trump administration on one side and states and cities on the other. Ambitious Democrats including Governor Gavin Newsom of California are looking for ways to resist the new Trump administration, not only on substantive grounds but also because standing up to Trump is good politics for them. When they do so on climate policy (as Newsom did when he proposed that his state offer tax credits for electric vehicles if Republicans eliminate the ones provided for in the Inflation Reduction Act), it will highlight climate actions Trump is taking that might otherwise have been overlooked.

In many ways, the climate story of the past few years has been an encouraging one — the passage of the IRA (the most consequential climate law ever), steadily dropping prices for renewables, innovations in energy and carbon mitigation, and more. The next few years will be characterized by conflict.

That may not be what climate advocates want, but it’s unavoidable. And no outcome is predetermined. November 5 altered the politics of climate change, but it didn’t end them; there will be plenty of opportunities to create controversies, exploit political opportunities, and get voters justifiably angry. Fighting — thoughtfully, with careful planning and energy — will be more important than ever.

You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Q&A

You, Too, Can Protect Solar Panels Against Hail

A conversation with VDE Americas CEO Brian Grenko.

This week's interview subject.
Heatmap Illustration

This week’s Q&A is about hail. Last week, we explained how and why hail storm damage in Texas may have helped galvanize opposition to renewable energy there. So I decided to reach out to Brian Grenko, CEO of renewables engineering advisory firm VDE Americas, to talk about how developers can make sure their projects are not only resistant to hail but also prevent that sort of pushback.

The following conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow
Hotspots

The Pro-Renewables Crowd Gets Riled Up

And more of the week’s big fights around renewable energy.

The United States.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

1. Long Island, New York – We saw the face of the resistance to the war on renewable energy in the Big Apple this week, as protestors rallied in support of offshore wind for a change.

  • Activists came together on Earth Day to protest the Trump administration’s decision to issue a stop work order on Equinor’s Empire Wind project. It’s the most notable rally for offshore wind I’ve seen since September, when wind advocates protested offshore opponents at the Preservation Society of Newport County, Rhode Island.
  • Esther Rosario, executive director of Climate Jobs New York, told me the rally was intended to focus on the jobs that will be impacted by halting construction and that about a hundred people were at the rally – “a good half of them” union members or representing their unions.
  • “I think it’s important that the elected officials that are in both the area and at the federal level understand the humans behind what it means to issue a stop-work order,” she said.

2. Elsewhere on Long Island – The city of Glen Cove is on the verge of being the next New York City-area community with a battery storage ban, discussing this week whether to ban BESS for at least one year amid fire fears.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow
Spotlight

How a Carbon Pipeline Is Turning Iowa Against Wind

Long Islanders, meanwhile, are showing up in support of offshore wind, and more in this week’s edition of The Fight.

Iowa.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images, Library of Congress

Local renewables restrictions are on the rise in the Hawkeye State – and it might have something to do with carbon pipelines.

Iowa’s known as a renewables growth area, producing more wind energy than any other state and offering ample acreage for utility-scale solar development. This has happened despite the fact that Iowa, like Ohio, is home to many large agricultural facilities – a trait that has often fomented conflict over specific projects. Iowa has defied this logic in part because the state was very early to renewables, enacting a state portfolio standard in 1983, signed into law by a Republican governor.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow