Since beginning his second term in January, President Donald Trump has put into place many executive orders with an overwhelming amount focusing around climate change. 

Most recently, Trump has pushed Americans to start buying more plastic straws and has rescinded former president Joe Biden’s policy to end use of single-use plastics by the year 2032 on all federal land. 

“I don’t think plastic is going to affect a shark very much, as they’re munching their way through the ocean,” Trump said while signing the executive order.

Trump has also sent out emails to more than 100 Chicago Environmental Protection Agency workers, many of whom were newly hired employees, warning them that they might be fired soon.

In his first term, Trump proposed funding reductions to the EPA but was combated with legislatures restoring funding for programs that protect the environment, such as a $400 million-a-year attempt to protect the Great Lakes.

Trump also began rolling back diversity, equity and inclusion programs, also known as DEI. Emily Marshall, an environmental studies student, said that DEI roles play a large part in environmental issues and due to this, the U.S. has potential to start seeing a lot more environmental racism.

“Even right now with the iron plant in Chicago, they’re lobbying to move it to the South Side,” Marshall said. “Right now, I think a judge has it blocked, but I see them moving it, and that’s going to be a really devastating impact on the environment for the South Side neighborhoods.”

One order Trump signed shortly after his inauguration declared a national energy emergency in the U.S. with the promise to “drill, baby, drill” through oil and gas expansion. 

Another of Trump’s first orders withdrew the United States from the 2015 Paris Agreement, making the U.S. one of four recognized countries that are not part of the agreement. 

The Paris Agreement was adopted to help limit greenhouse gas emissions to reach the global goal of limiting temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius — about 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit —  above preindustrial temperatures. 

By dropping out of the Paris Agreement, the federal government will have no obligation to fulfill financial commitments of the United Nations Framework Convention on climate change, or to reach emission reduction goals.

Persephone Amato, a freshman comedy arts major at DePaul, hopes to see pushback from Illinois since it is a more environmentally friendly state. However, she thinks companies in Chicago might have a large negative effect on the air quality. 

“I know the agreement prevented companies from doing any sort of crazy emissions,” Amato said. “In Chicago there are tons of companies and factories that will start producing a lot more and we might see the smog and smoke more.” 

During Trump’s first presidential term, he began the process of withdrawing from the Paris Agreement in 2017 and officially withdrew from the agreement by 2020. Former President Joe Biden then reinstated the U.S. into the Paris Agreement after four months in office. 

Mark Potosnak, a climate scientist at DePaul, said that the Paris Agreement was used as a way for countries to reduce their impact on the environment in a way that encourages other countries to make further reductions.

“The U.S. will no longer be part of the conversation that world leaders will be having about lowering greenhouse gas emissions,” Potosnak said. “The U.S. is now out of that loop and has lost a way to influence global climate change policy.” 

The U.S. leaving the agreement will also affect contributions to the Green Climate Fund, which has the goal of helping developing countries adapt to the effects of climate change and reduce its impact.

“There may be less incentives to pursue alternative energy. That could affect projects locally. There is strong legislation in the state of Illinois that incentivizes alternative energy, so this impact will be reduced,” Potosnak said. 

Potosnak said Chicago will face further impacts of climate change through increased heat waves and flooding and worse air quality if U.S. emissions are increased or are not reduced at all. 

Enacting a national energy emergency gives Trump the ability to roll back environmental protections and to partake in speed permitting, which means streamlining permits for economic expansion and development. 

These moves directly challenge Biden’s efforts to transition away from using fossil fuels. Trump also signed an executive order repealing Biden’s initiative to end drilling in the Arctic and along large areas on the U.S. coast. Trump said in his inaugural address that America would impose taxes and tariffs onto other countries and bring prices down with his order. 

“America will be a manufacturing nation once again, and we have something that no other manufacturing nation will ever have,” Trump said. “The largest amount of oil and gas of any country on earth — and we are going to use it. We’ll use it.” 

Emily Marshall, a junior studying environmental studies at DePaul, said that looking at nuclear energy could be a sustainable energy option that she thinks Trump would agree with and that would also limit the uses of coal in producing energy.

“I think one thing that we need to start considering (is) energy that’s actually going to produce enough for a state,” Marshall said. “Wind is great and so is solar, but it’s on a smaller scale right now, there’s not necessarily enough of it to go around.”

Marshall said not enough states want to adopt wind and solar energy. By leaning more towards nuclear, there would be enough energy to fully power states as well as subdue the harms of lung illness that mining for coal and all fossil fuels does. Marshall said that going towards nuclear power “wouldn’t come without harm, but it could be a future possibility.”

“I think a lot of people look at energy, and they think of the jobs that it creates for everyone, but they don’t think of the negative side effects,” Marshall said. “As someone from a coal state in Kentucky, there’s a ton of lung illness that goes along with the energy that he’s pushing for.”

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• Trump reshapes policy with flurry of executive orders
• 2024 to be hottest year on record, driven by climate change
• Chicago sues fossil fuel industry over climate change

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