Stuck on Repeat: US Climate Flip-Flops

Shazia Mehboob

Islamabad: When President Trump signed the “Unleashing American Energy” executive order on January 20, 2025, he declared the dawn of a new era of “energy dominance,” emphasizing fossil fuel expansion, deregulation, and economic growth at any cost. 

However, beneath the triumphant rhetoric lies a troubling reality: the systematic dismantling of environmental protections, which not only weakens US climate leadership, but also threatens public health, environmental justice, and the legal scaffolding of environmental governance.

Under President Obama, the United States had positioned itself as a global leader on climate action, taking bold steps such as joining the Paris Agreement and implementing policies like the Clean Power Plan and stricter fuel-economy standards. 

This leadership was not just about environmental policy—it was a moral commitment by the world’s largest historical emitter to take responsibility and inspire clean energy innovation. But with Trump’s return to power and the January 2025 executive order, the US has once again retreated from international cooperation. 

His renewed withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, coupled with cuts to international climate finance and rescinded domestic mandates, signals a sharp and deliberate backpedaling from collective climate governance.

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The cornerstone of Trump’s approach is deregulation—a calculated reversal of key Obama-era climate initiatives. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has suspended the Clean Power Plan, a move projected to add 1.8 gigatons of CO₂-equivalent emissions by 2035 compared to the previous baseline.

Methane regulations for oil and gas operations have been weakened, even though methane is significantly more potent than CO₂ in its warming effects. Similarly, in retrospect, by rolling back vehicle emissions standards, the administration has slowed progress in electric vehicle adoption and hindered potential gains in transportation efficiency. 

Framed as measures for “economic opportunity” and “energy independence,” these changes in fact result in erratic policy landscapes that shift with each administration—creating uncertainty for investors, industry, and state-level regulators.

The consequences of these policy reversals are not confined to charts or spreadsheets—they manifest in the lived experiences of everyday Americans. 

Public health researchers from Harvard estimate that the cumulative impact of these rollbacks could cause up to 30,000 additional premature deaths annually due to worsened air quality and increased particulate pollution.

Furthermore, an economic analysis commissioned by the Associated Press predicts that the US could face $275 billion annually in climate-related disaster damages, exacerbated by the policy’s encouragement of higher emissions trajectories. 

Marginalized communities, particularly Black and low-income neighborhoods already facing disproportionate exposure to pollution, are hit hardest. The removal of environmental justice provisions not only endangers their health but also narrows job opportunities in the growing clean energy sector—adding insult to injury.

Perhaps the most enduring damage caused by this deregulation spree is the deepening of political polarization around climate policy. When environmental rules can be rolled back by executive fiat and reinstated by the next administration, the result is policy whiplash. 

This instability deters long-term private investment, undermines regulatory certainty, and erodes the trust of international partners. The recent uproar in Congress—illustrated by more than 150 House Democrats demanding clarity on the administration’s freezing of Inflation Reduction Act funds—reveals how even broadly supported climate programs are now vulnerable to partisan conflict. 

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Without bipartisan legislative frameworks, every environmental advance remains a potential casualty of political turnover.

To escape this cycle of fragile rulemaking, the US must embrace resilient, bipartisan climate governance. Congress must move beyond executive orders and codify climate policy through durable legislation that can only be reversed through similarly robust procedures. 

This means setting economy-wide emissions targets with binding timelines, establishing predictable clean energy standards to guide market investment, creating an independent climate council insulated from political volatility, and enforcing environmental justice protections that prioritize mitigation in vulnerable communities. 

Only through such institutionalized commitments can climate policy transcend the political seesaw and become a stable, long-term national priority.

The Trump-era rollbacks highlight a central truth: climate policy rooted in executive discretion is inherently unstable. As climate impacts intensify—from wildfires and hurricanes to rising seas and food insecurity—America’s window for decisive, unified action is shrinking. 

The need for bipartisan consensus and legislative resolve has never been more urgent. If policies can’t survive the next election cycle, then they are not truly policies—they are political gambits. It is time for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to rise above partisan divides and secure a sustainable future that no administration can simply undo.

Shazia Mehboob is a PhD scholar and a visiting faculty member. She is also a freelance journalist and the founder of The PenPK.com. She tweets @thepenpk.