7 Key Highlights: The Return of Trump and His Anti-Climate Policies – Full Text Breakdown
The Centre for Financial Accountability (CFA), in collaboration with The Wire as media partner, Sambhaavnaa Institute, and Progressive International, co-organised an eight-part webinar series titled ‘The Political Economy of the Trump Era: Challenges & Opportunities of the Shifting World Order’, conceived to better understand the global moment we are all inhabiting.
In the context of an accelerating ecological crisis, the fourth webinar in the series, examined how climate collapse is being politically manufactured, seen most visibly through the return of Trump and his anti-climate policies.
The webinar discussed that far from being a passive backdrop to environmental degradation, Trump’s presidency represents an active, structural attack on global climate frameworks, environmental protections, and civil society. His open championing of fossil fuels, withdrawal of climate finance, threats to international aid institutions, and weaponisation of trade have intensified an already dangerous moment for the planet.
The webinar examined how the second Trump term is more disruptive than the first. With the planet now closer to ecological tipping points, shifts in American policy now carry even greater global consequences. Trump’s dismissal of climate science is not just rhetorical but is materially altering global energy trajectories, the fight against climate change, delaying action in the Global South, and legitimising extractive and authoritarian models of governance. The erosion of moral legitimacy among Western democracies further undermines efforts by civil society. The speakers underscored the growing dissonance between the language of ‘just transition’ and the reality of energy projects that displace already marginalised communities.
The speakers also discussed the predicament facing the Global South, highlighting how countries like India are caught in a contradictory position. On one hand, they seek climate finance and access to clean technologies to support adaptation efforts, strengthen resilience, and meet decarbonisation goals. On the other hand, they are compelled to expand fossil fuel infrastructure due to mounting trade, development, and geopolitical pressures. The discussion explored whether the world is entering a phase of “climate Authoritarianism” – a political formation where state-led suppression of ecological resistance coincides with deepening environmental collapse. In response, the speakers emphasised the need for alternative frameworks based in transnational solidarity, South-South cooperation, and the reclaiming of a climate agenda rooted in reparations and justice.
This webinar included speakers Disha Ravi, Harjeet Singh and Soumya Dutta and the discussion was moderated by Nitin Sethi.
Nitin Sethi: Investigative journalist
To begin, let me just set the background to what I’m thinking, I believe all of us would largely agree that Mr. Trump’s ascendance to the presidency for a second time has had significant consequences, both for geopolitics and for how economics flows, as well as for how the world imagines working together – or not. Some of these trajectories were already in place: a certain degree of conservatism, and a tendency among countries and groups to adopt more isolationist approaches. But Mr. Trump’s rather candid, and if I may use the word, shameless, approach to this, almost owning it, has sent ripples across the Globe.
He is, after all, the president of the most powerful country in the world. What he does impacts all of us, even though we don’t get to vote for him. His decisions, his choices, or the lack thereof, have wide and cascading effects on our lives. And one such effect is the impact on how the world addresses climate change.
There are three broad areas I’d like my fellow panellists to focus on.
First, how do each of you see Mr. Trump’s politics, his economics, and his approach to geopolitics shaping global responses to the climate crisis? Has climate change now been pushed into the background, crowded out by other seemingly more immediate and alarming global concerns? Has this long-term, slow-burning issue, which arguably causes as much damage to the lives of the poor across the world been sidelined, despite its urgency?
In India too, over the past decade, we’ve seen something similar. The ties between political leaders and industrialists have grown stronger, with Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani standing out as prominent figures. Power today is more concentrated than ever before, with government projects routinely handed over to this select few. These same industrialists now control key sectors from ports and petrochemicals to media and entertainment.
This growing concentration of power hints at unmistakable fascist tendencies, even though political leaders deny such labels. Globally, we are seeing this shift reinforced through various means of censorship, resulting in the gradual erosion of critical thinking.
It undermines the public’s ability to question dominant ideologies, especially those around nationalism and hampers democratic consciousness.
So, to open this discussion, I want to pose a fundamental question: What is the true cost of this growing bonhomie between political leaders and industrialists that we are witnessing around the world? And, perhaps more crucially – are we really living in a time of monsters?
Second, what does this mean for India? How do you see this impacting what India is currently doing on climate and what India can do? I think these are two distinct questions worth separating.
Third, for those of you who are engaging with the international negotiations, how has this shift affected the global climate conversation? Has it pushed countries into adopting a more conservative posture toward climate action, one that perhaps is less ambitious than what was being imagined even two years ago?
And finally, a point that just struck me: one important consequence of this shift is in the realm of global philanthropy. The United States has traditionally been home to a large set of philanthropic capital that supported a wide range of work on social justice and climate change across the globe. Has the choking off of this philanthropic flow, what I would call “catalytic capital,” for better or worse, impacted civil society’s ability to respond? Has it limited its capacity?
In some sense, if I may use the metaphor: when the biggest bully in town turns rogue, how do the other players including civil society, state actors, or non-state actors respond?
Do you retreat into a defensive mode? Do you become more aggressive? What’s the right approach and more importantly, what is actually happening? These are the broad set of questions I would like to put on the table today.
Disha Ravi: Climate Justice Youth Activist
In 2024, our planet broke a truly terrifying record. It became the hottest year ever recorded. For the first time, average global temperatures crossed approximately 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. And we’ve also realised that the Arctic is no longer a carbon sink – it’s now releasing carbon. The Amazon is on the brink of collapse. We’re living through a crisis that can no longer be explained by numbers alone. We’re already feeling it in our homes, on our farms, in our forests. And if you’re in Delhi, you’re feeling it in your lungs. I’m not saying all this to scare you. I’m saying it because I hope this moment unites us. We need that unity now more than ever, because at a time when urgency is required, a terrible man has returned to power. Donald Trump is once again President of the United States. But this isn’t just about one man. It’s about systems, systems that continue to prioritise profit over people, fossil fuels over forests, and greed over future generations.
Trump’s return is extremely dangerous. Within hours of being sworn in, he signed executive orders expanding oil drilling in some of the most ecologically fragile places on Earth, like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, federal lands, and offshore waters. He declared a so-called “national energy emergency.” But what he really did was declare war on the planet.
And this is not an exaggeration. The United States already produces more fossil fuels than it can consume. What it doesn’t burn, it exports. And because emissions don’t carry passports, what’s drilled in Alaska might burn in Africa, or Asia, or Europe. The point is, it all adds up. The emissions from all this burning are leading us straight into climate collapse.
Yes, climate change is global. But some of us are feeling its effects earlier and more intensely than others. Those of us in the Global South are already on the frontlines. Trump isn’t just burning fossil fuels. He’s burning bridges to a livable future. In recent years, the US had actually made some progress, something I didn’t expect to be saying. Most of that came through the Inflation Reduction Act. It funded solar panels, heat pumps, EVs. It helped establish over 300 clean energy projects across 41 states. None of it was perfect, but it was a start. It showed what’s possible when governments take even a small step in the right direction – but the minute Trump came back, he began dismantling all of it. He revoked clean energy orders, halted offshore wind projects, cut funding for climate tech, and undermined the very infrastructure needed for a just energy transition.
This doesn’t just slow things down. It sends a dangerous message to the rest of the world, that climate justice is optional, that it can be voted out, that our futures can be erased by politics. And this has very real consequences for countries like India.
We are already facing climate impacts in the form of deadly heat waves, erratic rainfall, like in Bangalore which now floods regularly, and crop failures across the country. Frontline communities, Adivasis, farmers, fishing communities, are bearing the burden of emissions they did not cause.
At COP29 in Baku, the Global South demanded 1.3 trillion dollars annually in climate finance. What we got instead were broken promises. Under Biden, the US pledged 11 billion, still far from enough. But under Trump, it’s now zero. He has cut all international climate finance, including the paltry 17 million dollars that was meant to help vulnerable nations recover from climate disasters.
This isn’t just unjust. It’s violent. It’s a new form of climate colonialism. And it doesn’t stop there. Trump has threatened to impose 60 percent tariffs on imports from Chinese companies. Many of the world’s solar panels, including the ones we use, are made in Southeast Asia by firms linked to China. If these imports are cut off, prices will rise globally. That makes clean energy less accessible. And once again, it’s communities like ours, young people, indigenous groups, women farmers, who will pay the price.
So when Trump says, “drill, baby, drill,” it might sound ironic, but it’s terrifying. It echoes the very real issues we’re already facing here, floods at odd hours, unbearable heat waves. The science backs this up. Carbon Brief recently estimated that Trump’s presidency could cause an additional 4 billion tonnes of emissions by 2030. That’s enough to erase much of the progress made by solar, wind, and other green energy in the last five years. This is not just about emissions. Trump is also defunding the agencies that monitor climate change, NASA, NOAA, the EPA. He’s rolling back pollution regulations and cutting funds for scientific research. This is climate denial in action in 2025, not just through tweets, but through real, destructive policy.
So where does that leave us?
For me, it’s clear that every single one of us has a responsibility. This is our shared home, and it’s our collective duty to organise, to hold governments accountable, to build alternatives, and to lead climate action. We cannot rely on the US or any Global North government that has repeatedly put corporations and profit before the planet. Now is the time for solidarity across borders, for justice-centred action, for movements built from the ground up. And I hope, truly, that even this crisis, even Trump’s return to power, becomes a moment where we choose to hold each other. I hope we organise. I hope we fight, because the world truly depends on it.
Harjeet Singh: Climate Justice Advocate & Activist
What we are witnessing right now is a major political and ecological inflection point. And when I say “inflection,” I mean that in both a positive and negative sense. While we are rightly concerned about the disruption being caused by Mr. Trump, for many of us in the climate space, this obstructionist approach by the United States is not new. What is different now is the brazenness. It’s no longer subtle or delayed – it is stark, in-your-face, and continuous. You pick up a newspaper, and almost every hour there is something new being announced that has global consequences.
For over 30 years, the US has played the role of a roadblock in global climate negotiations. That is one of the primary reasons we are living in a world that is already 1.6°C warmer. Much of this warming is due to the actions or inactions of the US and many others who have conveniently hidden behind its position.
We are now in the midst of a broader systemic disruption. Ecological collapse, economic uncertainty, and rising political extremism are not isolated, they are reinforcing each other. What we’re seeing is not just about one country; it is a global phenomenon. This style of right-wing populism has wide-ranging implications for both climate and energy. We must worry not just about Trump, but about “Trumpism,” which continues to shape policy and discourse far beyond US borders.
What we are witnessing is a full-throttle return to fossil capitalism. On one hand, Trump has long dismissed climate change as a hoax. On the other, he is preparing the ground for a new kind of green colonialism. His overt interest in Greenland, and his transactional approach to Ukraine, are all part of a broader race to control critical minerals – resources that will form the bedrock of the emerging clean energy economy.
At the same time, he is doubling down on fossil fuels, actively working to dismantle the fragile climate gains made in recent years. And to some extent in the US and it has also intensified the geopolitical fragmentation.His earlier withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and rollback of over 100 environmental regulations marked the start of this shift. That phase also emboldened climate denialists elsewhere. Countries like Brazil and Australia closely mirrored his stance. What we are seeing in his second term is far more deliberate and organised, even if it appears chaotic on the surface.
A case in point is Project 2025, whose framework is now being implemented almost word for word. This marks the systematic dismantling of international climate governance. The work of the UNFCCC is being undermined. Global climate finance is shrinking. And the Western world, particularly in terms of official development assistance (ODA), is retreating. They are pulling back, which is leaving the world’s most vulnerable even more exposed to compounding climate shocks.
Multilateralism, already fragile, is faltering. For those of us advocating equity in climate finance and historical accountability, the challenge has become even steeper. Fossil fuel lobbies have been emboldened. Strategic realignments are underway. The US is drawing closer to oil-rich nations like Saudi Arabia and Russia, turning climate diplomacy into energy weaponisation. Oil deals and sanctions are replacing cooperation. We are now in a world where fossil power defines diplomacy.
Turning to India and the Global South: on one hand, India is pushing forward with its renewable energy agenda. But fossil fuel use is also growing and may accelerate further. Trump is exerting pressure on India to enter into bilateral energy deals, particularly around LNG exports. This could weaken India’s negotiating position in international climate forums, especially around the demand for climate finance. India has always made a distinction between conditional and unconditional climate action. But if finance dries up, even conditional commitments may get delayed. Add to that the looming threat of supply chain disruptions in the renewable energy sector. Trump’s protectionist stance, especially targeting Chinese components, puts countries like India who depend on imports at serious risk.
Yet within this disruption lie opportunities. There is now a pressing need for a progressive global realignment. The time has come to deepen South-South solidarity, particularly around just transitions, adaptation, and addressing loss and damage. We’ve seen Europe and others talk about a Green New Deal, but we must define our own green industrial policies. We cannot afford to be dictated by the West.
New climate justice coalitions must emerge. Civil society has a crucial role to play but so do trade unions, indigenous communities, youth, feminist groups, and other frontline actors. Encouragingly, we are already seeing a regional pushback. For example, African countries asserting full sovereignty over their commodities and critical minerals. This is a powerful stance and long overdue. Now, on the state of civil society. Despite having already experienced the impacts of Trump’s first term, many organisations are still in shock. The reaction has been largely defensive, even as the attack this time is deeper and more structural. There were credible rumours that Trump would issue executive orders to directly harm the climate movement by cutting charitable funding and revoking tax benefits. This structural assault has left the philanthropic and civil society sectors scrambling.
Yet strategic conversations are ongoing. There is a growing understanding that the response must now be more organised. And this includes pushing for new forms of collaboration, like South-South cooperation and solidarity, just industrial transitions, and climate reparations.
For India and other Global South countries, the moment demands a reclaiming of moral and strategic leadership in global climate politics. We need to also talk about trade unions and how indigenous communities have been playing the role, youth and feminist groups and frontline communities. We already see a lot more regional pushback coming from various parts.
Take Africa, for example. There is now a strong and clear demand for full sovereignty over commodities and critical minerals. I think this is a very powerful stance, and it’s something many of us have long hoped would emerge. We want these regions to come forward, to assert leadership in shaping the future.
Now, turning to the response from civil society: despite knowing what Trump did during his first term, I would say civil society remains somewhat in a state of shock. The response has been largely reactive, partly because Trump is being more disruptive this time is far greater and the nature of the attack is far more structural.
There were even rumours of a potential executive order targeting the climate movement in the US, with threats to cut funding and revoke the tax benefits given to charitable organisations. This kind of structural assault has deeply unsettled the philanthropic and civil society sectors, particularly in the United States. While many are working on backup plans, the disruption is real. At the same time, there are strategic conversations taking place. Civil society is beginning to regroup, seeking ways to respond in a more organised and collective manner.
Some of these strategic directions involve deepening South-South solidarity, advancing green industrial policies, and pushing for new frameworks of cooperation. These are not just challenges, they are also opportunities that the Global South, including India, must seize. India, along with other countries, must reclaim its moral and strategic leadership in global climate politics. Too often, we approach climate negotiations less prepared than our Western counterparts. That needs to change.
It is time to speak consistently about climate equity and climate reparations. This has long been the language of civil society, but it must also become the language of governments. We have seen unified calls from movements for compensation and for justice but they are rarely echoed in state-level negotiations. That gap needs to close.
Our demands must include not just technological transition and energy security, but energy sovereignty. We must move away from fossil fuel dependency, even if that path is full of headwinds. Climate work today is not just environmental, it is also political. And we must resist, while also building new futures.
Now, while many agree on the need for South-South solidarity, I also believe we cannot let the United States or any wealthy country, off the hook. So far, most discussions focus on the transfer of funds from the Global North to the Global South. And yes, we are right to be concerned about the way US aid has been cut.
But perhaps it is time for a bold reversal of perspective. What if the Global South actively invested in educating the citizens of the US, and of other wealthy nations? People need to understand the historical injustices that underpin today’s climate crisis. They need to learn why we are calling for system change, why the US is responsible for climate reparations, and how past economic models based on extraction and exploitation have impoverished nations across the world. This kind of public education is essential.
Because these same citizens are the ones electing leaders like Trump, or their counterparts in Europe and elsewhere. And those leaders, in turn, are actively undermining the climate futures we are fighting for. To build the world we want to see, we must shape the narrative.
Soumya Dutta: Climate Scientist & Activist
We are undeniably facing a possible climate collapse, chaos, call it what you will. There is broad agreement on that, so I will not spend further time on this. There seems to be a prevailing understanding that what Trump is openly doing is what is he doing, while Biden and the others were less brazen. However, there lies two misconceptions in this understanding.
First, there is a significant difference between Trump 1.0 and Trump 2.0. There is an eight- year gap between his two terms, and in that time the world has changed dramatically. The physical world, the climate systems, have shifted in profound ways. Many key parameters, including planetary boundary studies, show that this is no longer the same world we were living in eight years ago. The pace of deterioration has accelerated.
Therefore, any action taken today, particularly negative ones, will have an amplified impact compared to what was done in Trump’s first term. If we compare his first year in office then and now, the consequences of similar actions are far more serious now due to the planet’s worsening condition.
This is why we must keep in mind that whatever Trump is doing today, it is not only confined to US actions. It has global repercussions. Many countries are reacting to it. After Trump 2.0 took office, it became clear once again that despite talk of the global pivot shifting from the US to BRICS or elsewhere, Trump has shown that the pivot still remains strongly centered on what the United States does. The US still holds the power to shift global agendas drastically and quickly. Whether that power is used for good or bad, it is undeniable.
So the first point is that climate systems have changed rapidly in these eight years, and the US remains uniquely positioned to affect those systems for better or worse.
Second, as a corollary to that, we must recognise that the changes being made in the US are not isolated. Trump’s policies are influencing other major global actors. Let us take China, for example. Is China likely to drastically change its energy policy in response? No. China is a country that sets long-term plans and follows them. Unlike India and some other countries, which often shift positions under international pressure, China has clearly defined where it wants to go in terms of energy and production targets. Even though it remains the largest current polluter and the second-largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases, China has laid out a clear, if slow, transition path. Despite the ongoing construction of coal plants, it is moving steadily toward a defined transition.
What about the third major conglomerate, the European Union? Even before Trump returned to power, the war in Ukraine had already disrupted energy supplies and led the EU to dilute some of its climate commitments. When people in cold countries face energy shortages, long-term climate goals take a backseat to immediate survival, and their immediate policies become priority. The EU, as a bloc, has already started showing signs of retreat. This is not necessarily true of individual countries, which are still bound by broader EU policies, but as a collective, the EU is clearly less firm and less committed than it was before Trump 2.0. Now, let us consider India and other Global South nations. These countries are also facing growing pressure, particularly in the realm of trade. One of the key tools Trump has used is trade weaponisation, especially around the trade deficit. The United States currently runs a trade deficit of roughly one trillion dollars. Whether that deficit is good or bad is a separate debate, but the way Trump is trying to fix it has real consequences for energy and climate.
What about countries like India and others in the Global South? There is increasing pressure on these economies, especially in the context of trade. Trump has weaponised trade in a very deliberate way. The United States currently runs a trade deficit of around one trillion dollars. I am not making a judgment on whether trade deficits are good or bad, but Trump’s strategy to correct it through aggressive tariffs and economic threats is having a huge impact on energy and climate.
Here is what is important: over the last 15 to 20 years, the United States has transformed itself into a net energy exporter. It now produces more oil and gas than it consumes. Even coal, which has seen a production decline, is being exported aggressively. Under Trump, the push to sell surplus American fossil fuels, especially oil and coal, to other countries including Global South nations and even Europe, has intensified, and there is no sign that this will decrease. And many countries are willing participants. Just as they were ready to buy discounted oil from Russia, they are also prepared to buy surplus American fossil fuels. This is not just about what the US is doing within its borders. This is actively undermining the energy transition efforts in many other countries.
The transition that we are talking about has not really been happening in many countries. Most countries, except for a few in the European Union, have not meaningfully replaced fossil fuel sources with non-carbon or renewable energy as their primary energy source. What is happening instead, especially in countries like India, is that our additional energy demands are being partially met by renewable energy.
So, in effect, this is not an actual transition. Even when we look at the numbers percentage-wise, we have not moved very much. This is what I would call a fragile situation for the renewable energy transition. And here, we are not even talking about a just transition yet – just transition is an even more complex issue.
In fact, what we are seeing in India is an unjust transition. Renewable energy projects are displacing already impacted communities. These are people who are now facing a second level of disruption. So, it’s not just a matter of whether a transition is taking place. Even where some transition is occurring, it is not happening fairly.
What we expected was that with faster implementation of renewable energy targets, the transition would have begun in a more structured way. And as a result, absolute emissions would start to decline, even if slowly. It’s important to note that in most countries, absolute emissions have not started declining. The exception is the United States, where emissions have come down largely because of a shift from coal to gas. This decline also happened because, even before the Inflation Reduction Act, many US states had already initiated their own energy transitions. States like California had set independent agendas to replace fossil fuels with renewables. These states have some degree of autonomy and financial flexibility, not total, but enough to create momentum.
As Trump 2.0 begins dismantling the renewable energy support framework at the federal level, some states have actually responded with stronger commitments. That’s one small positive point. However, if the federal government continues withdrawing financial incentives, as is now happening, then both domestic and international climate initiatives begin to slow down. And that presents a serious threat to the global climate system.
Let us also consider the trade dimension. Globally, energy trade accounts for about 55 to 60 percent of trade volume, though not in terms of value. Energy is still the bulk of global trade by weight or volume. Trump is going all out to push US trade in any sector that can deliver profit, especially in fossil fuels – oil, gas, and coal. The US became a surplus producer due to fracking. Fracked oil and shale gas enabled the US to shift from a net energy importer to a net exporter. Now, the US is using this surplus to strike favourable fossil fuel deals with other countries, and this poses a serious risk.
This trend is already visible in India. India has significantly increased oil imports from the US and may soon ramp up coal imports as well. Coal usage in India had started to decline around four years ago, but in the last three years, it has gone up again. Many countries are now grappling with energy instability in a rapidly changing economic and geopolitical context, especially following the Russia-Ukraine war, are also dealing with a similar situation.
What do we do in the face of this?
One clear course of action is already emerging. Many of the more progressive blocs, particularly smaller, more vulnerable countries, along with radical civil society groups, have come to the conclusion that we can no longer rely on the United States. Of course, we cannot physically write the US off. It remains the country with the greatest historical responsibility for emissions. But if it continues to refuse to act, we cannot keep waiting, nor should we spend time lamenting. What we must do is mobilise all available resources and begin isolating the US diplomatically and politically where possible. And that is starting to happen. This is one small sign of hope amidst an overwhelmingly negative picture.
To conclude, although I don’t yet see a large, coordinated global movement to respond to the threat Trump has reintroduced, there are encouraging signs. Global civil society is beginning to collaborate more actively with threatened and progressive states. New strategies are starting to take shape. That gives us some hope. But overall, the threat of climate chaos has clearly grown. And given the pace at which this is happening, there is very little likelihood that we can entirely avoid a period of heightened instability and potential destabilisation.
