Republicans’ ‘Project 2025’ threatens climate change progress and US democracy
The right flank of the US Republican Party is pushing ‘Project 2025’, a plan that would transfer unprecedented power to the presidency
Its goals include abolishing the Inflation Reduction Act and increasing extraction and usage of fossil fuels, undoing progress in fighting climate change
The northern hemisphere’s autumnal equinox arrives this week, and we have never needed it so badly. Most of us north of the equator can finally enjoy the outdoors again after record-breaking heat made every walk to the office or grocery store an exercise in endurance.
Those not fortunate enough to have air conditioning had it much worse. Then there are the least fortunate: those dead or homeless owing to the unprecedented scale of this summer’s forest fires and flooding.
For many, this turn of seasons has traditionally brought about the warmth of a more social kind. There are reunions with friends back from holiday and homebound now that the kids are back in school, sport-watching marathons and connecting with family about who will host Thanksgiving and the year-end holidays.
It is all backed up with marketing campaigns delivered through every possible channel, showing folks in woolly jumpers sipping hot beverages. We can almost smell the aroma of pumpkin spice lattes with a shot of Kentucky bourbon.
So let’s take some time now to lie down under a tree that is starting to show its autumn foliage because, if you’re paying any attention, you know the climate crisis is only getting worse.
According to International Energy Agency data, despite the sharp increase in installed renewable energy generation capacity, the world emitted more energy-related carbon dioxide in 2022 than in any other year on record. The news so far this year has been so dominated by weather-related chaos that this sickening statistic barely made it into the headlines.
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El Nino is here, and it’s quite worrying, according to climate scientists
El Nino is here, and it’s quite worrying, according to climate scientists
We no longer need degrees in climate science to realise our only hope to avoid further escalation in the kind of weather catastrophes we have seen recently is for all of the new green power capacity to start displacing fossil fuel power plants and petrol or diesel-powered vehicles more quickly.
That will not be easy. The right flank of the US Republican Party – those most devoted to their 2024 election front runner Donald Trump – has a plan to stop our only path out of the crisis that is devastating increasingly large swathes of the world’s population.
Written by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank, “Project 2025” is a plan to transfer unprecedented power to the presidency, eliminating the independence of the Justice Department and other federal agencies and placing the nation on a path to autocracy.
Targeting the heart of the US government’s effort to speed up the green energy transition, the plan proposes to undo the Inflation Reduction Act, among other measures, including increased extraction and usage of fossil fuels. Project 2025’s chapter on the US Department of Energy was written by Bernard McNamee, a Trump appointee to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission who had previously led the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which fights environmental regulation.
Former US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks on the stage at a South Dakota Republican Party rally in Rapid City, South Dakota, on September 8. Photo: Reuters
There are no words besides “evil” to describe a governance policy doctrine that seeks to undermine efforts to address that which is most threatening to the greatest number of people.
This column has often riffed on the ironic similarities between the Republican Party’s Trump supporters and the autocratic tendencies of the Russian and Chinese governments. Not all Republicans are on board with plans to eliminate all checks on executive power, but very few have had the guts to denounce this – or Trump himself – directly.
Trump himself has never been able to contain his admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Like President Xi Jinping, the former president will not condemn the war that the Russian leader started, unleashing endless misery to satisfy his need to rebuild an empire.
But with Project 2025, the equivalence starts to break down. Trump’s minions, Putin and Xi share a belief that the American democratic system of checks and balances has failed and will use any means to undermine it.
However, the effort to overturn the progress we’ve made so far in the fight against climate change, just as the connection between carbon emissions and devastating weather events becomes undeniable, puts Republican efforts to throw sand into the gears of government on another level.
The Chinese government might have all but eliminated dissent through executive authority, as Trump’s Republicans want to do, but it’s also supporting green energy development with the sort of drive that threatens American competitiveness in these game-changing technologies.
Something to think about as we look up at the autumn colours of the trees that will turn to ash if the Republicans’ right wing wins.
Robert Delaney is the Post’s North America bureau chief
