Trump Can’t Really Stop Biden’s Climate Legacy

Melania and Donald Trump with Joe and Dr. Jill Biden at the Bidens’ departure ceremony at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, January 20, 2025.Chris Kleponis/CNP/ZUMA

Since taking office, President Donald Trump hasn’t wasted time unraveling Joe Biden’s climate legacy. He’s signed executive orders directing his administration to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement, end offshore wind leases, root out environmental justice programs, and declared a “National Energy Emergency” to encourage more fossil fuel production.

But many of Biden’s climate policies won’t be unglued easily. Some regulations, like the Biden administration’s fuel efficiency standards, may take time, potentially years, to repeal. Other Trump administration actions are likely to be challenged in court, or already have been. And in some cases, like the Inflation Reduction Act, a $370 billion climate law that has so far hugely benefitted Republican districts, undoing the law may not be in Trump’s own best interest.

To get a better sense of how Trump may reverse Biden’s climate efforts and whether the United States has any hope of achieving its previous climate goals, Mother Jones reporters Jackie Flynn Mogensen and Henry Carnell spoke with Michael Gerrard, the faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University.

As Gerrard told Mother Jones, “A good deal of momentum was built up under Biden in the transition to clean energy. That’s going to be difficult to stop. It’ll be slowed down, but it won’t be stopped.”