The forces fighting global warming and battling to strengthen environmental protection must brace for heavy collateral damage as a result of Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. presidential election. Judging by Trump's campaign rhetoric, and by statements from his Republican allies, environmental protection in the United States will be gutted in a frenzy of deregulation and inducements for domestic oil, coal and gas producers.
Environmentalists are assessing the potential damage and developing strategies to avoid an onslaught driven by the most extreme anti-sustainability forces that have ever controlled Capitol Hill. The list of possible victims is long and depressing. If worse comes to worst, America will become much less green, while dealing a crippling blow to international cooperation.
At the recent climate conference meeting (COP 22) in Marrakech, Morocco, attention focused on the various ways a Trump administration might kill the climate agreement reached at COP 21 in Paris last year. Death could come by assassination, with Trump tearing up the agreement. Or it could come by starvation, with the U.S. refusing to do or pay its share. Or it could be tortured to death, with the U.S. asking everyone else to do more.