Project 2025: What It Means for the Environment
Aanum Khan ’26
Christine Wu ’25
While Donald Trump has publicly disavowed Project 2025, saying that he “has nothing to do” with it, the political initiative bears an uncanny resemblance to his own climate change policies—those of economic fear-mongering, animated by deranged comments surrounding windmills—in its denial of climate change’s effects on Americans (PBS NewsHour, 2024).
To get an idea of the values underpinning Project 2025, we must examine the man who runs the far-right think tank (Heritage Foundation) supporting it: Kevin Roberts. His denial of climate change is sheathed in a professed fear of climate elites ending “the American dream,” which he stated at The New York Times’ “Climate Forward” event (Wilson, 2024). He views economic subsidies related to clean energy, largely occurring as a result of President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, as governmental overreach and economically unsound, which are ideas echoed in Project 2025.
Enough about rhetoric, though. According to the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, Project 2025’s extremist ideas would have catastrophic impacts on the American economy, with the green-energy sector of American industry nurtured by the Inflation Reduction Act all but history if the tax incentives were rolled back (Center for American Progress, 2024). Not only would Americans lose jobs and slip into poverty, but they would also be forced into more planet-hurting energy alternatives, emitting “billions of tonnes” more than our current standard (Harvey, 2024).
Project 2025 would also limit the United States’ adherence to the Paris Agreement, with governmental sectors dedicated to clean energy eliminated in favor of a “fossil fuel agenda,” according to Evergreen Action’s Craig Segall (Energy Innovation, 2024). Instead of embracing American innovation in an effort to serve our planet, the quick extraction of fossil fuels would take priority, with the repeal of the Antiquities Act of 1906 allowing drilling on American federal public lands (Center for American Progress, 2024). This would disrupt wildlife and hurt American citizens, with the possibility of clean water sources threatened in the service of misguided economic gain.
It is not enough to oppose Project 2025’s most radical proposals; rather, climate-focused Americans must unite against Donald Trump’s similar policies. Kevin Roberts’ friendship with JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee, points to the potential influence the Heritage Foundation would have on our nation’s vulnerable climate blueprint (Johnson, 2024). Our lands could be used for drilling. Our clean-energy industry could go down the drain. Our ozone layer could be further affected by carbon emissions. Our future could be even more smog-blackened and disaster-dominated. It is enough to give any responsible American who wants clean water and air pause.
References
Center for American Progress. (2024). Project 2025 seeks to repeal one of America's greatest conservation tools. Center for American
Progress. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/how-project-2025-threatens-the-inflation-reduction-acts-thriving-clean-energy-economy/
PBS NewsHour. (2024, September 30). Watch: 'I have nothing to do with Project 2025,' Trump says. PBS NewsHour.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-i-have-nothing-to-do-with-project-2025-trump-says
Wilson, R. (2024, September 15). How Kevin Roberts is pushing Project 2025’s climate rollback agenda. Mother Jones.
https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2024/09/project-2025-kevin-roberts-climate-ira/
Energy Innovation. (2024). The second half of the decisive decade: Potential U.S. pathways on climate, jobs, and health. Energy
Harvey, F. (2024, August 14). Trump’s Project 2025: A radical rollback of climate progress. The Guardian.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/14/trump-project-2025-climate
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. (n.d.). The Paris Agreement. UNFCCC.
https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement
Johnson, D. (2024, October 1). The new climate war: How J.D. Vance and Kevin Roberts aim to shape U.S. policy with Project
2025. The New Republic. https://newrepublic.com/article/184393/jd-vance-violent-foreword-kevin-roberts-project-2025-leader-book
