When Donald Trump was sworn in as U.S. president on January 20, 2025, one of his first acts was to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement. A year later, the U.S. exit will become official on Tuesday.
In the past 12 months the White House repeatedly fought against climate protection: wind turbines “ruin the landscapes.” Solar panels were “ugly,” coal, by contrast, “beautiful,” Trump said. In front of the United Nations he called climate change a “hoax” and warned world states to stop climate protection, “or your country will fail.”
But Trump talks a lot, and actions do not always follow. What is the state of climate protection in the United States?
“It’s really bad,” says Lori Bird. She is the director of the energy department at the U.S. think tank World Resources Institute. “But the renewable industry is gaining momentum.” Renewable energy is also in the United States the most efficient source of electricity and quicker to build than fossil-fuel plants. In the Republican-ruled Texas, wind and solar generate almost twice as much power as in the Democratic-ruled California, because land is cheap and sunny. “But renewables face many obstacles,” Bird says.
Threat to Global Wind Power
In the summer, Trump’s Republicans dismantled the Inflation Reduction Act, which under President Joe Biden allocated gigantic sums for solar and wind projects as well as electric cars. The subsidies for solar and wind projects were cut from 2027 onward, subsidies for electric cars already from September of last year.
“In some states, subsidies were even withdrawn from projects that were already under construction,” Bird says. Project developers are suing, and court cases are underway. How they will turn out is uncertain: five huge offshore wind farms off the East Coast of the United States had to pause construction at first because the federal government withdrew their permits.
Both the Empire Wind project by the Norwegian oil company Equinor and Revolution Wind by the Danish company Ørsted and a wind farm owned by a Virginia-based company may now continue construction after intervention by a federal court, even though decisions on their lawsuits against the permit withdrawals have not yet been made.
Trump’s attacks are nonetheless a global headache for the offshore industry, even as he loses in court. “Uncertainty in offshore markets could push capital costs higher, as investors price in higher risks,” Henrik Andersen warned to the Financial Times. He is the CEO of wind turbine manufacturer Vestas and the chairman of the WindEurope industry association. “If there are disruptions in one part of the industry, everyone starts to wonder: ‘Could this affect us too?’”
US Emissions Rose in 2025
Nevertheless, project developers planned to bring online by the end of last year almost 60 gigawatts of new solar, wind, and battery storage capacity, more than 90 percent of all new power-generation capacity in the United States. There are as yet no data on actual connections. By 2030, they are expected to reach 195 gigawatts—but this also includes almost 40 gigawatts of new climate-damaging gas power plants. “We will see more gas-fired plants, a lot more,” Bird says.
The rapidly growing electricity demand from the AI data-center boom ensures that all types of power generation are in demand, not only the climate-friendly ones. The Trump administration even tries to keep old and expensive coal power plants alive with millions in investments.
Accordingly, U.S. CO2 emissions rose by 2.4 percent in the past year, instead of falling as in 2023 and 2024. Besides the AI energy hunger, the cold winter in the northern United States contributed to the growing CO2 emissions, because heating there is still often powered with gas and other fossil fuels, according to estimates by the Rhodium Group think tank.
The Trump Administration sees itself as a concierge for oil and gas
Lori Bird, World Resources Institute
Lori Bird describes the U.S. federal government’s energy policy as “concerningly hostile to economic interests.” The Trump administration “blocks approvals for renewables but presents itself as a concierge for oil and gas.” Large tech companies and 29 U.S. states still have targets and regulations to shift their electricity mix to renewables. “But it is a challenging environment.”
Trump Attacks Disaster Preparedness
To add to that: Trump’s far-right government is also attacking disaster preparedness, which becomes increasingly important with the continued use of coal, oil, and gas and thus advancing global warming—after all, the costliest wildfires ever, which in January 2025 devastated parts of Los Angeles, were also fueled by climate change.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) lost one third of its staff and, according to the TV channel ABC, entered hurricane season without a plan. In the floods in Texas, intensified by climate change and killing more than 100 people, FEMA also did not perform well. And ahead of one of the most powerful storms in Alaska’s history, the British Guardian reports that an earlier warning could not be issued, because the local weather balloon network was only partially operating due to staff shortages.
