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\n A version of this story appeared in CNN\u2019s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n \n Americans are used to whiplash in their climate policy. The US has been in and out and in and out again of the key Paris climate agreement<\/a> over the past four presidencies.\n <\/p>\n \n But in his second administration, President Donald Trump is not just approaching climate science with skepticism. Instead, his administration is moving to destroy the methods by which his or any future administration can respond to climate change.\n <\/p>\n \n These moves, which are sure to be challenged in court, extend far beyond Trump\u2019s well-documented antipathy toward solar and wind energy and his pledges to drill ever more oil even though the US is already the world\u2019s largest oil producer.\n <\/p>\n \n His Environmental Protection Agency announced plans this week<\/a> to declare that greenhouse gas emissions do not endanger humans, a move meant to pull the rug out from under nearly all environmental regulation related to the climate.\n <\/p>\n \n But that\u2019s just one data point. There are many others:\n <\/p>\n \n \u25ba Instead of continuing a push away from coal, the Trump administration wants to do a U-turn<\/a>; Trump has signed executive orders intended to boost the coal industry and has ordered the EPA to end federal limits on coal- and gas-fired power-plant pollution that\u2019s been tied to climate change.\n <\/p>\n \n \u25ba Tax credits for electric vehicles persisted during Trump\u2019s first term before they were expanded during Joe Biden\u2019s presidency. Now, Republicans are abruptly ending them<\/a> next month.\n <\/p>\n \n \u25ba The administration is also ending Biden-era US government incentives to bring renewable energy projects online, a move that actually appears<\/a> to be driving up the cost of electricity.\n <\/p>\n \n \u25ba Republicans in Congress and Trump enacted legislation<\/a> to strip California of its authority to ban the sale of new gas-powered vehicles beginning in 2035.\n <\/p>\n \n \u25ba Trump is also expected to overturn national tailpipe standards enacted under Biden\u2019s EPA and is also to challenge<\/a> California\u2019s long-held power to regulate tailpipe emissions.\n <\/p>\n \n \u25ba The authors of a congressionally mandated report on climate change were all fired; previous versions of the report, the National Climate Assessment<\/a>, which showed likely effects from climate change across the country, have been hidden from view on government websites.\n <\/p>\n \n \u25ba Other countries, large and small, will gather in Brazil later this year for a consequential meeting on how the world should respond to climate change. Rather than play a leading role \u2014 or any role at all \u2014 the US will not attend<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n \u25ba Cuts to the federal workforce directly targeted offices and employees focused on climate change<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n The list goes on.\n <\/p>\n \n But it is the Trump administration\u2019s move to undo the \u201cendangerment finding\u201d<\/a> that could have the most lasting effect. The 2009 declaration that planet-warming pollution from fossil fuels<\/a> endangers human health is what allows the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act.\n <\/p>\n \n Now, anticipating the end of that endangerment finding, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin bragged of the \u201clargest deregulatory action in the history of the United States.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n That\u2019s the kind of statement that will excite people who don\u2019t see a threat from climate change and strike fear in the hearts of those who do.\n <\/p>\n \n Zeldin is a former congressman with little background in environmental policy but a demonstrated loyalty to Trump. He has described his mandate at EPA less in terms of protecting the environment than in terms of unleashing businesses<\/a> from regulation.\n <\/p>\n \n The Trump administration is justifying its move to gut the endangerment finding based on a report it commissioned from five climate skeptics<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n After a public comment period, the Trump administration can move to undo the endangerment finding in the fall. It would essentially close off the Clean Air Act as a vehicle to combat climate change.\n <\/p>\n \n Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who made millions in the fracking industry, commissioned the report. In a preface, he did not deny that climate change exists.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cClimate change is real, and it deserves attention,\u201d he wrote. \u201cBut it is not the greatest threat facing humanity. That distinction belongs to global energy poverty.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n In other words, Wright sees more damage to humans from cutting back on carbon emissions.\n <\/p>\n \n That is a minority view in the scientific community, which has a much, much larger body of peer reviewed studies that raise the alarm about climate change. Most notably, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issues peer-reviewed reports with hundreds of authors from around world. The Trump administration has barred US government scientists<\/a> from taking part in the next installment, due out in 2029.\n <\/p>\n \n Katie Dykes, the commissioner of Connecticut\u2019s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, told me that you no longer need a government report to see the effects of changing climate.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWe see that the impacts of climate change have become part of everyday lives of our residents and our communities,\u201d Dykes said. \u201cIn ways that scientists were predicting years ago, we\u2019re seeing those impacts are happening faster and they\u2019re more severe than we had anticipated.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n By moving to declare that greenhouse gas emissions don\u2019t endanger humans, the Trump administration is shifting the burden for dealing with climate change.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThis effort to undo this long-standing framework is really abandoning our communities and our residents to shoulder these costs and these impacts of climate change,\u201d Dykes said.\n <\/p>\n \n Those include health risks like respiratory illness, safety risks from extreme weather events, and impacts on infrastructure, housing and neighborhoods.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWe\u2019ve seen these impacts already in our state in terms of extreme heat and drought, wildfires and flooding,\u201d Dykes said.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cSeeing EPA walk away from decades of their core mission of protecting public health, reducing pollution and setting common sense standards at a national level is really concerning,\u201d she added.\n <\/p>\n \n The Trump administration\u2019s report should not be viewed as a scientific document, according to Andrew Dessler, director of the Texas Center for Extreme Weather at Texas A&M University.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cTheir goal is not to weigh the evidence fairly but to build the strongest possible case for CO2\u2019s innocence,\u201d he told my colleague Ella Nilsen<\/a>. \u201cThis is a fundamental departure from the norms of science.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Nilsen reached out to numerous scientists after the report\u2019s release.\n <\/p>\n \n Phil Duffy, the chief scientist at Spark Climate Solutions, a nonprofit focused on climate change, told her tens of thousands of Americans die every year as a result of particulate pollution, but the numbers have declined as the US has reduced its dependence on coal. The Trump administration would reverse that trend.\n <\/p>\n \n Michael Mann, director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media, sees a hostility to science in the Trump administration.\n <\/p>\n![\"Cows](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/c-gettyimages-2150753986.jpg\")
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