Opinion: Local, state climate action can still continue under Trump
This year, the United States witnessed some of its most severe climate change impacts. With 2024 shaping up to be the hottest year on record, the climate monster has gotten bigger, faster and more dangerous. Wildfires wreaked havoc across the American West while atypical fall heat and drought ignited smaller but still lethal fires in the Northeast. Hurricane Milton’s wind speeds increased from Category 1 to a Category 5 hurricane in just 36 hours.
We know why this is happening. The world’s economy, but especially China, the United States, India, the European Union and Russia, have burned so much fossil fuel that we have wrapped the earth in a thicker blanket of greenhouse gases. All this heat is more energy that makes for a more violent climate.
Meanwhile, we have the ability to address the situation. Renewable and nuclear power coupled to energy storage can zero out energy emissions. A zero-carbon grid can cleanly power electric vehicles. Steel and concrete industries have low-carbon processes available. By working with nature, we can sink carbon dioxide and secure ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren.
In 2017, Donald Trump announced that the United States would withdraw from the Paris Agreement. It was agreed to by over 190 countries in 2015, creating a practical and fair way for nations to reduce emissions and progress together.
President Biden reengaged the Paris Agreement and submitted an ambitious U.S. commitment. Subsequently, he passed bipartisan infrastructure laws and created the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate to support our low-carbon future. Billions of dollars have made their way to the states, rebates and credits have helped families, businesses, industry, hospitals, schools, and state and local governments, supported hundreds of thousands of jobs, while showing other nations that we are both a good partner and the world’s most formidable and innovative economy.
Trump will likely announce a second withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. Following Project 2025, Trump will gut federal agencies and their ability to meet their obligations to the American people. His sledgehammer will smash regulations, harming citizens of every race and class, but especially the poor and minorities. Doubtless, the natural monuments and wild areas that many Americans hold sacred will face damage if not destruction.
However small, I was ready for the first Paris exit in 2017. As then vice-chair of the Ferguson Township Board of Supervisors, I authored and passed central Pennsylvania’s first net zero greenhouse gas resolution. Other central Pennsylvania municipalities and the Centre Region Council of Governments (COG) followed suit while many across the state signed onto the “We Are Still In” campaign. The COG created a first-class intergovernmental climate action and adaptation plan and joined several other local governments to pursue a solar power purchase agreement that will avoid over 3,000 cars’ worth of planet-warming gases each year. Meanwhile, the University Area Joint Authority, Centre County, Ferguson Township, and State College Area School District (SCASD) already have on-site solar facilities. Centre County Refuse and Recycling Authority and SCASD have more in the works.
Political will, better costs, and more efficient technologies make ambitious climate action attractive in Pennsylvania. The state legislature and Governor Shapiro could pass the Community Solar Bill, build on Solar for Schools with a Solar for Municipalities and Counties program, generate state revenue by pricing greenhouse gas emissions from Pennsylvania’s largest emitters, and incentivize farmers and private foresters to sink carbon and create high-quality food and products. The commonwealth should invest in education, workforce development, and capacity-building from GED to Ph.D. At the local level, we must continue our leadership, inventorying and monitoring emissions, investing in efficiency, adopting integrated renewable energy and electric vehicle infrastructure, and preserving the places we love.
Many of us are rightly discouraged and fearful. I do not doubt we will have much to grieve. But we should not be daunted. It is our duty and our honor to do what is right together.