Climate Groups React to Trump’s Election Win

Current conditions: Power outages are likely to spread across windswept California today as PG&E tries to prevent fires • A snowstorm is brewing in Colorado • It is 80 degrees Farenheit and raining in West Palm Beach, where Donald Trump delivered his 2024 presidential victory speech early this morning.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Donald Trump wins 2024 presidential election

Donald Trump has won the 2024 presidential election. Votes are still being tallied, but he has so far taken the swing states of Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, and Wisconsin. At the time of publishing, he had secured 277 electoral college votes to Vice President Kamala Harris’ 224. Republicans also took control of the Senate, but the status of the House of Representatives remains unclear.

The energy and environmental implications of a Trump victory are profound, writes Heatmap’s Robinson Meyer. He is likely to pull the United States out of the Paris Agreement, approve a new tranche of liquified natural gas export terminals, and block and then begin to roll back the Environmental Protection Agency’s climate rules for power plants, cars, and light-duty trucks. “Not all of these rollbacks will make themselves felt at first,” Meyer writes. “The current set of EPA clean car rules, for instance, apply to vehicles sold through model year 2026. That is close enough to the present that automakers have already begun to make the necessary investments to meet those standards. But vehicles sold in the latter half of this decade will likely face much weaker rules or none at all.” He may also try to repeal or otherwise hinder the Inflation Reduction Act, which would set the country and world back in the fight against climate change. But it would also significantly raise taxes on energy companies (and automakers) while hurting Trump’s own voters, as the IRA’s hundreds of billions in investments, which are largely tax credits, have overwhelmingly flowed to Republican districts.

“For every step back that Trump takes on climate policy, China will step forward and take more of a global leadership role,” Meyer writes. “As Trump’s White House steers American climate policy for the rest of the 2020s, they will not just be deciding what direction the U.S. will go in — they will be acting with, or against, the rest of the world.”

2. Environmental groups react to Trump win

Reactions to Trump’s victory are trickling in from climate organizations and analysts. Here are a few:

• “There is no denying that another Trump presidency will stall national efforts to tackle the climate crisis and protect the environment, but most U.S. state, local, and private sector leaders are fully committed to charging ahead. And you can count on a chorus of world leaders confirming that they won’t turn their back on climate and nature goals.” –Dan Lashof, U.S. Director of the World Resources Institute.
• “This is a dark day, but despite this election result, momentum is on our side. The transition away from dirty fossil fuels to affordable clean energy is already underway. Trump can’t change the reality that an overwhelming majority of Americans want more clean energy, not more fossil fuels. Through investments in the Inflation Reduction Act we are creating millions of new clean energy jobs. Clean energy is already cheaper in most cases than dirty fossil fuels, and wind and solar now generate more power in the U.S. than coal.” –Sierra Club Executive Director Ben Jealous.
• “The jobs and the economic benefits [of the IRA] have been so heavy in red states, it's hard to see an administration come in that says we don't like this.” –Carl Fleming, partner at law firm McDermott Will & Emery, and renewable energy policy adviser for the Biden White House.
• “Movements for change have won important victories under the toughest conditions. It would take more than a Trump presidency to change that. Every pipeline, every fossil fuel export terminal, and every fracking well we can stop matters. Together we will keep fighting for climate justice, for social justice, and to protect our communities.” –Elizabeth Bast, Executive Director at Oil Change International.

3. How key climate elections are playing out

Heatmap has been keeping tabs on 36 of the most important climate elections, from seats in the House and Senate down to local ballot measures and attorneys general. Here’s where some of those stand so far:

• Republican Rep. Jen Kiggans won re-election in Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District. Kiggans, the vice chair of the Conservative Climate Caucus and a Trump ally, backed the Default on America Act to repeal clean energy tax credits and has flip-flopped on her support of offshore wind.
• Democrat Attorney General Josh Stein won the election for governor in North Carolina. He had proposed a path to reach carbon neutrality in the state by 2050 and has a history of taking on polluters and Big Oil price gougers. His Republican opponent had called climate change “junk science” and said he’d attempt to block history and science from being taught in the first through fifth grades.
• In Ohio’s Senate race, MAGA Republican Bernie Moreno has flipped the seat of three-term Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown. Moreno has stressed that “we need natural gas, we need oil” rather than “this move toward windmills, solar panels.”
• The race for Pennsylvania’s Senate seat remains a toss-up between Democratic incumbent Bob Casey, Jr. and Republican David McCormick. Few Senate races this year have touched on climate and energy issues as much as this one, in the country’s second-largest natural gas-producing state.
• In New Mexico, Democrat Rep. Vasquez managed to fend off a challenge from Republican Yvette Herrell to hold on to the state’s 2nd congressional district. The district includes a large swath of the oil-rich Permian Basin, and Vasquez had walked the line between promoting wind and solar manufacturing as part of the IRA while also “looking out for those fossil fuel communities.”
• Republican Austin Knudsen will remain Montana’s attorney general, beating Democratic challenger Ben Alke. Knudsen leads the state’s case against the 16 young plaintiffs in Held v. Montana, who are suing lawmakers for allegedly violating their right to a “clean and healthful environment” as enshrined in the state’s constitution.

In addition, the Republican-backed effort to repeal Washington state’s new cap and invest program failed; voters in Berkeley rejected a ballot measure that would have functionally reinstated the city’s first-in-the-nation prohibition against gas hookups in new buildings; and California looks likely to pass Proposition 4, which authorizes $10 billion in bonds for water quality, coastal resilience projects, wildfire prevention, and climate-risk protections.

4. Trump victory puts Elon Musk in the spotlight

Donald Trump has ascended to the White House with the assistance of a strange coalition, which includes Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who is supposedly going to oversee a new Department of Government Efficiency. In his victory speech, Trump devoted a verse to Musk. “A star is born: Elon,” Trump said, praising Musk’s efforts on the campaign trail, his “beautiful” rockets, and Starlink. “The future is gonna be fantastic,” Musk said on X. As Heatmap’s Meyer noted: “Musk has said that repealing the IRA could benefit Tesla by kneecapping its competitors. Yet much of Tesla’s profit comes from selling regulatory credits created by California and the federal government’s climate policies. If Trump repeals those policies, what will happen to Tesla’s profitability?”

5. Election Day broke heat records

Across the United States, millions of voters cast their ballots in record or near-record daily heat, including in Rochester, New York, where it hit a sweltering 81 degrees Fahrenheit (it was also the city’s hottest November day on record). It also hit a record 81 degrees in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which has not seen rain since October 6, and a record 78 degrees in Columbus, Ohio. In Hartford, Connecticut, the mercury likewise reached 78 degrees, tying the previous Nov. 5 record set in 2022. New York City and Washington, D.C., meanwhile, experienced their warmest Election Days since President Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated the Republican governor of Kansas, Alf Landon. It was the hottest Election Day in a century in Cleveland, Ohio, the hottest Election Day since 2003 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and the hottest November 5th on record in Jackson, Kentucky.

THE KICKER

“There is an antidote to doom and despair. It’s action on the ground, and it’s happening in all corners of the Earth.” –Christiana Figueres, the former UNFCCC executive secretary who helped secure the landmark Paris Agreement, reacts to the election results.