For years we’ve been experiencing countless air quality warnings due to mass wildfires, record high temperatures across the globe, and sea levels rising at a dramatic rate. “Once in a lifetime” weather events make the news multiple times a month. In the face of these crises, we’ve seen inspiring bursts of struggle—from the school strikes led by Greta Thunberg to the Sunrise Movement’s sit-in at Nancy Pelosi’s office.

Now, Donald Trump’s presidency is aggressively reversing the already shaky environmental policies in place, ramping up deregulation and fossil fuel production in the name of profit. Only nine months into Trump’s second term he’s withdrawn the US from the Paris Agreement, he’s weakening clean air and water regulations, and he’s promoting domestic energy independence through increased oil, gas, and coal extraction. The Trump administration is accelerating the damage caused by climate change in a drastic way, and it’s ordinary working people who pay the ultimate price.

Drill, Baby, Drill

In the past, the climate movement was up against a liberal political establishment that recognized the need to tackle climate change but wasn’t willing to take action. Now Trump is actively making things worse, championing the slogan “drill, baby, drill.” The fossil fuel industry is experiencing a dramatic revival, kickstarted with an estimated $18 billion in new tax benefits to oil and gas producers. Aggressive moves have been made to open up public lands and waters for expanded drilling and extraction. These changes signal a clear prioritization of short-term fossil fuel production over long-term climate impact. 

Under the Trump administration, the renewable energy sector is facing mounting obstacles. Federal tax credits and subsidies that once helped drive growth in wind and solar have been sharply reduced or eliminated altogether. The Rhodium Group now estimates a 62% decline in clean energy additions to the US power grid over the next decade.  

Budget cuts from the Trump administration to weather agencies like NOAA have hindered accurate forecasting and emergency response with deadly results. In Texas, floods claimed numerous lives only weeks after cuts to the organization that could have prevented these lost lives. Trump has justified all these cuts by promoting climate denial and whipping up nationalist rhetoric. Renewable energy has become yet another front in the broader ideological war, one in which fossil fuels are cast as patriotic and clean energy as unpatriotic. 

The Biden administration was also not doing nearly enough to effectively combat climate change. In fact, the Biden administration did more drilling than any previous administrations! But the climate movement had forced a recognition of the urgency of climate change and even achieved small victories. We need to boldly fight Trump’s attempts to reverse these gains.

Inter-Imperialist Conflict 

Trump’s attacks aren’t a product of personal greed or stupidity. They’re following the logic of imperialist rivalry and capitalist competition. The US and China have each developed different strategies for resource extraction, designed to boost their energy production and come out on top in the inter-imperialist conflict.

Trump has curtailed renewable energy to reduce dependence on China and ramped up fossil fuels which are still plentiful in the US sphere of influence. China, with less access to oil but rich in critical minerals, is aggressively electrifying the country and investing in renewable energy, but their grid is not all green. Abundant in coal, they’re still the largest coal producer in the world and rely on fossil fuels for well over half of their energy.

As part of this strategy, China has invested heavily into electric vehicles, and now leads the world in the industry. Trump is going in the opposite direction, having slashed EV incentives. Let’s be clear: neither imperialist power is attempting to answer the question of climate change, but rather, both countries are attempting to secure their own energy dominance in an increasingly fragmented world.

The inter-imperialist conflict is even driving the “climate-friendly” European countries to roll back climate measures to expand defense production in order to compete with Russian imperialism. This is being exacerbated by Trump’s “America First” approach in pushing through a series of energy trade agreements. Under the US-EU trade deal, the European Union is now obligated to purchase approximately $250 billion in American energy annually—far more than it actually requires—further locking it into a dependency with the US economy. Similarly, the Trump administration is pushing Japan and South Korea to invest in US infrastructure projects like the Alaska LNG pipeline. 

The movement needs to fight Trump’s attacks. But the problem is systemic and demands an anti-capitalist struggle.

What Is Needed? 

As long as the economy’s driving force is profit, we will continue to see the temperature rise alongside billionaire profits. An economy based on human need would not require constant growth, overproduction, and waste like capitalism does. With the means of production owned and run democratically by the many rather than the few, this would allow for the elimination of oil drilling, fracking, and emission of greenhouse gases. 

The climate movement must call to nationalize the top 100 polluting companies and bring them into democratic public ownership. We must combine our fight against both climate change and imperialist war for an internationally planned, socialist economy that can rapidly transition to green energy. 

The anti-Trump movement needs to take up the struggle against Trump’s destructive climate policies, which pose a threat to ordinary people at home and abroad. While we have seen waves of fightback against the Trump administration, it has not yet escalated to what is needed.

It can be easy to feel despair at the state of climate change. But our fight can’t go away—it needs to get bolder and take on the whole capitalist system. Student climate activists need to revive the militant school strikes and sit-ins of recent years and link these up with the labor movement. Trump tries to pit jobs against climate action, so we must fight for a just transition for all workers in polluting industries toward green jobs, with no loss in pay or benefits. Working people have the economic leverage to stop Trump in his tracks through strikes, sit-ins, and work stoppages. 

Ultimately, the failure to transition rapidly and fairly to renewable energy is not a technical or financial problem. It is a political one. Under capitalism, even the most promising solutions are  subordinated to the logic of profit, competition, and imperialism. 

Democratic public ownership of the energy sector is a necessary step if humanity is to break free from the cycle of war, extraction, and environmental collapse. The market cannot and will not deliver a livable planet. Only through democratic, collective control of our energy systems can we begin to unlock the full potential of renewable technologies and build a truly sustainable society.