Trump targets climate, energy, health policy on first day

On the first day of his second term, Donald J. Trump completed over 40 presidential actions. Among them were a myriad of executive orders that will have wide-reaching effects on US climate, energy, and health policy.

One order withdrew the US from the Paris Agreement, a global pact to stem climate change, following up on a promise he made during his campaign. The order says the country will immediately withdraw from what Trump described during his speech at the Inauguration Day parade as the “unfair, one-sided Paris climate accord rip-off.” The process will in fact take at least a year.

The order marks the second time that Trump has withdrawn the US from the Paris Agreement. The country pulled out of the treaty in late 2020 and under President Joe Biden rejoined it in early 2021.

Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris accord comes just weeks after multiple scientific organizations announced that 2024 was the hottest year on record. Last year’s average global temperature also surpassed 1.5 °C above preindustrial levels.

Exiting the Paris Agreement means the country no longer needs to pursue the climate goal that the Biden administration recently submitted to the United Nations. In December, the then president committed to cutting US greenhouse gas emissions by up to 66% by 2035 compared with 2005 levels.

The move is expected to have economic ramifications. Ani Dasgupta, CEO of the World Resources Institute, a research organization focused on environmental and economic issues, says in a statement that leaving the Paris pact “will hand China and the European Union a competitive edge in the booming clean energy economy and lead to fewer opportunities for American workers.”

Trump’s executive orders about energy went beyond the pro–fossil fuel tone of his first term with aggressive measures to curtail wind and solar power generation. Language throughout the spate of executive orders paints intermittent power sources as a threat to national security and economic stability.

An order focused on wind power, for example, contains instructions for five federal departments and the US Environmental Protection Agency to stop a 1 GW wind farm being developed in Idaho, halt all leasing and permitting for wind power in federally controlled waters, and review existing offshore projects for legal defects.

Another order directs federal agencies to encourage offshore oil and gas exploration. It also stops distribution of funds from the Inflation Reduction Act for electric vehicle charging stations. In another blow to transportation electrification, the order takes aim at consumer subsidies for electric vehicles and emission caps for internal combustion engines, at both the state and federal levels.

Trump also took aim at the high cost of the US public health system and its ineffectiveness during crises. As part of his opening act, the president signed an executive order to withdraw from the World Health Organization (WHO), claiming that the US is paying more than its fair share. The US will leave the global health agency, which is part of the UN, within 1 year of officially notifying the UN and the WHO.

“China, with a population of 1.4 billion, has 300 percent of the population of the United States, yet contributes nearly 90 percent less to the WHO,” the executive order states.

Although the exit can’t legally happen for a year, all funding and resources will be paused, and government personnel and contractors will be reassigned as soon as possible, the order says.

“We have a public health system that does not deliver in times of disaster, yet more money is spent on it than any country anywhere in the world,” Trump said during his inaugural address.

During his first term, Trump had notified the WHO that the US was withdrawing from the organization because of its mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic. He had also cited the WHO’s failure to adopt necessary reforms and its caving to inappropriate political influence by other member countries. Biden retracted that notification on day 1 of his presidency. Trump’s latest executive order revokes Biden’s retraction.

Chemical industry associations in the US mostly welcomed Trump’s domestic manufacturing initiatives. Chemical makers are concerned, however, about the promise of broad, severe tariffs. For example, the Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates expressed alignment with the administration’s overall goals but asked for tariff exemptions for raw materials not currently made at scale in the US, a category that would include most rare earth elements as well as semiconductor-grade isopropyl alcohol.