Editor’s note: This is an op-ed by Benji Backer, author of The Conservative Environmentalist and founder and chairman of the American Conservation Coalition, the largest right-of-center youth-led environmental organization.
I’ve got a bold prediction: I believe there is a real chance that President-elect Donald Trump could do something big that is pro-environment.
Before I make my case — and offer some advice to the new administration as well as my fellow activists — let’s acknowledge one thing at the start: A second Trump presidency will bring with it some setbacks for the climate community.
More oil and gas development will happen. The U.S. will likely leave the Paris Agreement. There may be an undoing of certain parts of the Inflation Reduction Act — hopefully not a lot of it, especially the successful clean energy investments across the country.
Still, the question in front of us remains: do we throw up our hands in defeat, or do we continue working to make progress under the new administration?
The reality is that Trump doesn’t have a solidified ideology surrounding climate and the environment, which were not priority issues in this election cycle, particularly not for his campaign. (Though, in his first debate, Trump did release talking points explicitly saying that America needs to meet increased energy demand and decrease its carbon pollution.)
This gives the climate community an opportunity to appeal to him and his team about the overlap with his America-first principles and pro-environment interests. Simply put, protecting our environment means putting America first, and putting America first means protecting our environment — the land and life within America itself.
So, how can we tap into this overlap? When talking to people about issues that matter to you, it’s best to meet them where they are. Ask yourself, what issues do they care about? Why do they care about those issues, and how can I build a bridge using something that I care about?
The same principle could work with climate leaders and the Trump administration. I believe that starts with an America-centric message focused on producing more energy in America from all sources. Energy independence is important to Trump — and the reality is, it’s not possible if we only focus on a single energy source. So if that independence is important to him, he should be more pro-mining in the U.S. for everything — including solar and batteries.
Trump also cares a lot about America’s identity. Why not tap into that with nature-based solutions? He has a lot of hunters and anglers in his base of voters who want to protect nature and the places they love.
He cares a lot about agriculture. We can tap into how sustainable agriculture is more efficient for farmers and puts more money in their pockets.
He’s spoken against forest fires — let’s tap into that and figure out better forest management so that we’re not increasingly putting wildfire pollution out into the atmosphere every summer.
There will be potential for progress within this administration, and I wouldn’t have said that eight years ago. There’s also a massive opportunity for setbacks, but setbacks seemed like the only thing that was possible eight years ago.
During Trump’s first term, the Conservative Climate Caucus did not exist. The caucus is now one of the largest in the House, and its key tenets are that climate change exists and that humans have contributed to that change. (Trump’s choice for EPA, Lee Zeldin, was part of the Caucus.) And conservative environmental organizations like ClearPath and the American Conservation Coalition were far less established then than they are now, allowing them to better appeal to Republican leaders for pro-environment policies.
And, eight years ago, there weren’t a lot of Republican-led states making significant progress economically because of clean energy, like Georgia, Texas, Florida, Utah, and Arizona are now — and many of the states benefiting the most economically from the IRA are GOP-led.
Even oil and gas companies, which are investing in clean energy as well, are benefiting from aspects of the IRA. Several House Republicans have already lobbied the Speaker of the House not to roll back rebates and incentives for their constituents tied to the IRA.
It also helps that Tesla founder Elon Musk is close to President-elect Trump and has said he believes in climate change. He’s supportive of solar, wind, and battery technology, and he knows that China has an economic advantage over us on these issues. And Robert F. Kennedy, who is also close to Trump, wrote a book about climate change that was more to the left than many climate activists.
If I had the chance to offer the incoming administration advice on energy and environmental policy, I’d focus on the following approaches to boost American independence, strengthen our economy, and conserve our nation’s natural resources for future generations:
1️⃣ Don’t pick winners and losers in the energy space. That’s what some, even climate-minded Republicans such as John Curtis, have complained the left was doing with the IRA. Oil and gas are not the only energy sources that make people’s lives easier or better. The expected demand for renewables is set to increase, and it would be bad for America if we weren’t a part of that. Nuclear and geothermal are also enormous opportunities, which overlap directly with the expertise of the oil and gas industry.
2️⃣ Don’t risk your legacy by putting America’s environment last. It’s not America First to put America’s environment last. Don’t miss out on an opportunity to scale America’s role in the clean energy transition — because the rest of the world, including China, is already benefiting from it economically more than we are. We could take that share back.
3️⃣ Make your policy not about traditional old-school technologies but about the future of American energy based on innovation, technology, and ingenuity. Invest in the future. If this administration only focuses on meeting the demand over the next four years, its legacy is going to be irrelevant. But if it invests in the next 40 years, its legacy will be that it brought America to energy independence and led America to the promised land on the race for clean energy, the race for conservation, the race for protecting the world that we live in.
You don’t want to be on the wrong side of history. And while Trump has previously dismissed climate change concerns as just meaning more oceanfront property (editor’s note: which, technically speaking, would be incorrect because higher sea levels would erode Americans’ existing beachfront property and shrink the total coastline), you especially don’t want to be on the wrong side of history when it may mean parts of the actual country become history.
As climate activists, we’re going to have to pick our battles. We can overshadow some of the potential setbacks by pursuing an agenda that Trump will get behind — keeping America and its beauty of paramount concern and supporting rural communities. And we can continue making real progress through state and local action that will happen outside of President Trump’s oversight.
The climate community should stand together — I hope climate activists don’t give up. If they do, it will make things a lot harder.
The road to meaningful climate progress was never going to consist solely of wins — but let’s make sure that the next several years are not completely full of losses.
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