What has Donald Trump's first 100 days meant for sustainability?

Hello and welcome to the Sustainable Views podcast. I'm Philippa Nuttall, the editor of Sustainable Views. You may have noticed that we've been a little bit quiet of late, but rest assured we'll be back very soon with a fully revamped podcast. But we couldn't let Donald Trump's 100th day in power pass without some form of comment from us.

Because we have a big job to do. No other president would have done what I did. No other president. I know the presidents, they wouldn't have done it.

Joining me to try to unpick what his first chaotic 100 days in power mean for sustainability policies and regulations Our Sustainable Views' acting deputy editor, Elizabeth Meager. Hi, Lizzie.

Hello.

And our policy researcher, Erin Donnelly. Hi, Erin.

Hi.

So great to have you both with us today to discuss this. So, Elizabeth, you're our main US correspondent. How are you feeling after covering Trump for 100 days? I mean, he said yesterday that nothing will stop me. So we're apparently set up for more of the same in the next 100 days. But yeah, how exhausted are you?

Exhausted is definitely the word. Yeah, the entire strategy of the administration is obviously to flood the zone, as Steve Bannon said a long time ago, and that's really what they've done. So chaos has been like the overwhelming effect over the past 100 days. We've had an unprecedented number of executive orders, but important to note, there's not been that much real policy. So a lot of these things can be undone or challenged in court. But just to mention a couple of those, and this is really scraping this, barely scraping the surface. We've had federal layoffs including dramatic cuts to climate science and climate resources, most recently being the decision not to produce the National Climate Assessment this year. We've got the dismantling of USAID, which will just have ongoing ripple effects around the world and I think will take some time to really kind of crystallize. I mean, I heard just yesterday that there is real anger towards the US within those countries, those initiatives that have been cut off from that funding. And then we've got trying to scrap various EPA regulations, the declaration of an energy emergency, trying to boost coal.

Clean, beautiful coal. I said you're not allowed to use the word coal unless you say clean, beautiful coal. So you have guys getting up, Department of Energy. We have great people at Department of Energy. They talk about clean, beautiful coal.

Freezing IRA funds. And this is all not even mentioning tariffs. And we have been monitoring all of this in our Trump Watch Tracker, which we launched fairly early on in the Trump administration. And Erin has taken the lead on that as policy researcher. So can you tell us, Erin, about how manic that's been?

Yeah, of course. So the Trump Watch Tracker, which you can find on Sustainable Views' homepage, serves as a monitoring tool for key federal policy developments and provides a bit of a deep dive into the most important policy announcements coming out of the Trump administration. I think it goes without saying, kind of supports what Lizzie said, we haven't exactly struggled for content. As a policy researcher covering Trump's administration, as my first sort of experience with dipping my toe into the reporting side of things, it was a big jump, I think. And it's been pretty hectic, but a great experience. A word a lot of experts have used to describe it, and Lizzie as well, to describe the Trump administration the second time around is chaos. I'd struggle to find a better word to describe it. His use of executive authority has been pretty far-reaching, ranging from executive orders covering the death penalty, federal workforce, to showerheads, and his hatred of plastic straws— paper straws, apologies. So, yeah, keeping up with this administration has been a pretty interesting challenge.

Yeah, we've kind of thrown you into the deep end, haven't we, Erin? First time covering these issues, whereas I think both Lizzie and I were probably around for the first Trump administration. And so we We had a little bit of an idea that obviously things are at a different level, definitely this time. And Erin, have there been any policies in particular that have really sort of stood out for you in terms of the coverage that you've been either writing about or that you've sort of added to the tracker?

Yeah. So I think the thing that stood out to me the most is kind of how far his administration is willing to go to undermine things that don't necessarily align with his policy priorities. And I think a great example of that is not just the administration's moves to overhaul federal regulation, but it's also the federal structure. The first thing that comes to mind with that is Trump appointed Lee Zeldin as the administrator of the EPA. The Environmental Protection Agency announced plans to revisit a number of its longstanding environmental regulations, which I think amounted to 31 of them, and hailed its move as the biggest deregulatory action in US history. And stated that they're driving the dagger straight deep into the heart of the climate change religion.

Today the green new scam ends as the EPA does its part to usher in the golden age of American success.

Which I thought to be quite concerning from the administrator of the agency designed or created to protect the US environment. Further, Trump's move to cut funding to academic institutions signaled a real step up for that in that sense for me. For example, the administration's decision to withdraw $4 million of funding from Princeton's climate modeling programs and his ongoing war with universities like Harvard who have refused to allow Trump's attempt to overhaul their governance priorities. I just think it's a real step in the direction of trying to control what narrative there is out there that doesn't lie within Trump's beliefs or necessarily his policies. There's also a noticeable shift in tone in a lot of these policy announcements. Agencies like the EPA have accused previous administrations relying on creative leaps to support a lot of scientific findings, supporting a lot of their bedrock climate regulations, for example, the US Clean Air Act. And the Department of Commerce has described a lot of initiatives, climate research initiatives, as fueling a climate anxiety amongst younger populations. And for me, it's not just a policy reversal. There seems to be a huge shift in the ideology surrounding the federal government.

Yeah, no, it's true. We've seen a lot of changes, and it's true, as you say, it's not just the policies or the regulations, or as Lizzie says often, it's not really policy and regulation change. There are executive orders which are encouraging everybody to, to act on and which are being acted on. But there is also this change in language that we've seen, much more towards climate denial. And then things that were taken for granted, such as the Clean Air Act, which really had nothing to do with climate change when they were originally enacted and were something that the US was always quite proud of leading on are starting to be undermined. So yeah, it's a very different beast than we saw in Trump's first term. So Lizzie, we've heard a lot about the negative side of things. I'm not sure there's necessarily much positive to pull out, but in the first Trump term, we definitely saw at a state level there was quite a lot of pushback against what Trump was trying to do. We saw lots of communications from mayors, from civil society. Saying this wasn't the position of the US and it was very much just the administration and even Trump himself. Are we seeing the same kinds of resistance at a domestic level this time, or are things much quieter?

I would say the first few months were definitely quieter, and I spent a lot of time wondering why that is. I think a big part of that is that in his first term, a lot of the resistance was driven by California, and obviously California was hit by these devastating wildfires in Los Angeles in January. I think that the governor and the attorney general had to spend a couple of months not pandering necessarily, but focusing on the recovery effort, but also securing funding from the federal government. I think that part of it was just the absence of California in that resistance. I also think that people were tired and like, really, are we doing this again? I think that's the sense. There is also this sense that things have moved forward a little bit in terms of attitudes towards climate and sustainable investing. But I do think that that is starting to change. I think that, um, the resistance is kind of growing now. Um, California has brought at least, I think, at least two that I can think of right now lawsuits against the administration, including one on tariffs. And other states are starting to push back. And part of that is driven by, um, the executive order. I can't remember the exact wording, but it was really about trying to take power away from states, which is like very firmly enshrined in the Constitution. And I think that You know, in that set, the administration is just kind of throwing things at the wall there. I don't think that they will succeed there, but I think that that has driven some of the resistance. And we are starting to see some limited resistance from Trump's own party as well, partly driven by the president's sinking approval ratings, largely driven by his tariff— can't even call it tariff policy. And I think that was making it politically easier for others to criticize him. And it does seem to be forcing him to walk back in some areas somewhat. He might have said yesterday that he's only just getting started, but I have also seen, I guess, pragmatic people saying that they're skeptical about how much this administration can actually achieve outside of executive orders, given the sinking popularity, a super divided Congress, and the just kind of rapid pace of elections in the US, meaning that midterms aren't actually that far away.

And we do get the feeling that there's quite a lot of fear at the moment. I mean, we've seen a judge arrested. I mean, it was about immigration rather than climate, climate or sustainability issues, but do you get any sense when you speak to people there is this sense of fear if they speak out or that they resist that there wasn't in the first term?

Definitely, yes. And actually, when I speak to anyone that I do speak to, their first question is always like, are other people talking to you? How has your job been in recent months? Definitely, particularly among lawyers who I have historically always interviewed, that's almost kind of dropped off with US law firms. They have been very reticent speak, which I can understand, although it's a shame and it does make covering the law difficult. But then we— again, this is kind of shifting. And one thing I should say is that, you know, I've spun a slightly more positive message there about maybe the administration will start walking back certain things. This is just within the realm of like economics, state powers, and maybe some of the climate stuff. I, you know, what the administration is doing on immigration and so many other areas is really, really scary. And I don't think that they're going to stop there.

What about an international level? Because we saw earlier this week that Mark Carney won in Canada. A lot of that has been attributed to an anti-Trump impact. The Liberals were way down in the polls before sort of Trump started suggesting that Canada become part of the US and threatening Canada over tariffs and other issues. Australia's elections are coming up very soon in the next couple of days. Again, their Labor government, which has implemented various climate policies, is expected to win a second term. And so do you get any sense that actually, you know, Trump's sort of very belligerent attitude towards sustainability could almost backfire and we could see leaders elsewhere being elected who actually support fairly progressive climate policies and actually at an international level, things could still move forward?

So ironically, yes. I have also seen this various attributions of Mark Carney's win to Trump. I think the Conservatives in Canada had been kind of cozying up somewhat to Trump, also being slightly Trumpy in their language, and that seriously backfired. And I've also heard that the opposition in Australia was kind of positioning itself in that way up until the end of last year, and that, that, that's probably not going to work for them. So Labor in Australia are on track to win. But it's important, I think, to note that like none of these— although Labor in Australia has been positive for climate, I don't think that climate is quite really central to their campaigning message, and it certainly wasn't to Mark Carney's Liberals in Canada. It was very much about national security, energy independence, and it was this, and all of the above approach to energy that people kind of supported. So but what, what that does mean is that none of Canada's kind of existing climate policies are going anywhere. So although he didn't explicitly say I will do X and Y on climate, those climate policies have remained, barring of course the consumer carbon tax. From politicians and from businesses, it is a kind of a slight tweak in the way that they talk about climate and energy, but I don't think that there's a dramatic change from many other governments as was forecast in actually progressing on climate action. I think it was super positive to see China coming out last week and saying, no, this is really good, we are going to stick with it. I think that that gave lots of other countries some confidence that everyone is on the right track. And I think it's important— I mean, we are, we are the news, but it's important that we all don't get carried away with news that like one bank has amended its Scope 3 2030 emissions target, or one asset manager has left a climate initiative. You know, throughout the past couple of months and even before this, investors have consistently told me every time I speak to them that decarbonization is the only option in the medium to long term. Government policy could help or hinder that, but it won't change it.

Yeah, and that's very what we get, we can see in the articles that we've got on Sustainable Views where we speak to a wide range of people, whether lawyers, bankers, asset managers, businesses, etc. And that is very much the message that we seem to be getting, that there are concerns. Many businesses really unlike the uncertainty that's being cast, especially because of Trump, but still there is this movement forward. So perhaps a little bit of positivity out there. Erin, so we've had 100 days, there's going to be the next 100 days. I mean, what are you looking out for in terms of the policy tracker? Are you sort of expecting the same flow of executive orders to come, or do you expect things to calm down a bit now?

I think we all hoped that he would calm down already, and it doesn't seem to be heading that way. So I think it would be a bit hopeful or optimistic maybe to say that we're expecting things to quieten down anytime soon. I will say that I am expecting quite a few more regulatory rollbacks, particularly in the energy sector. Trump's recent use of the Defense Production Act to fast-track mining and coal production alongside the EPA's announcement to offer exemptions to certain provisions of the Clean Air Act for coal-fired power plants, I think really signals his administration's continued emphasis on fossil fuels. On a slightly different side of things, looking at Trump's support, I think polling— recent polls have suggested that Trump's popularity amongst Republicans is actually somewhat dimming. And I think he stands at 40% of support for Republicans and Democrats alike. And I think that's kind of a reflection of a lot of the administration's recent policies which actually end up harming those that put Trump in power. For example, the US Department of Education being slightly targeted and Linda McMahon's extraction to facilitate the closure of the department. I think Republican states make up 19 of the 20 most dependent on federal funding for this side of things. So I think targeting things like that, if the administration continued to target departments like this or initiatives like this that support those in the states that really backed Trump will likely mean it's turning the tides in terms of the support that he receives.

So plenty to look out for from your side in the, in the next 100 days then. Lizzie, what do you expect? Do you still see this sort of churning out of executive orders? I mean, you mentioned before that we haven't really seen much actual substantial policy change and that you didn't really seem to suggest that we would see that. And perhaps also we've got COP30 coming up at the end of the year, a bit of a lookout to that and kind of how you see the US potentially at a state level sort of responding to this need for multilateral action.

Like Erin, yes, I think we'll be hoping that cooler heads will prevail, but we shall see. I mean, one thing that a lot of kind of voters and businesses have expressed surprise at is that so far the administration is doing almost exactly what it said it would do in Project 2025. So we only have to look to that to figure out what's coming. I think one thing that I would flag is this, like, dozens if not hundreds of lawsuits that the administration is going to be battling over the coming years. Obviously, their targeting of big law firms, which they kind of said was all about their diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, which were unfair. I think it's very clear to almost everyone that that's not what it was about. Actually, it was about how much legal resource the administration is going to need to defend itself in court against states, businesses, charities, individuals, but also increasingly, I mean, the Empire Wind project off the coast of New York that the administration has ordered a temporary pause. Equinor, the Norwegian energy company that was kind of running that, has said they don't have any hope that that project will be able to continue and that they are considering legal action. That, that project had begun. So I think that they will be in with a good chance of success there. So increasingly these cases are going to be coming from, uh, outside of the US as well, which is, um, going to be a bit of a headache. Um, looking to COP, one thing that's not that clear is, um, this state-level resistance, how, how international that might end up being. So America is all in— was, I think it was called We Are Still In in the first round, and that was this coalition of states, businesses, cities, everything coming together and saying, although the US has left the Paris Agreement, we are still in the Paris Agreement. They have now rebranded it to America is All In, but what's not clear is whether they will be at COP kind of trying to negotiate on the US's behalf, on their own states' behalves. I don't know if that will be part of the picture anymore. So yeah, an awful lot to be thinking about.

Indeed. Yeah, I mean, it was interesting, obviously in COPs as well, we have in the past had Republicans for Climate Action there. So whether though, you know, there could be certain individuals with even, or small groups from the Republican Party. I mean, the Republican Party has obviously changed in recent years, but clearly everybody is not fully behind what Trump's doing. And certainly we can see from his ratings that there is a change in the American population. Well, thanks to both of you. That was really interesting. And thanks for all your hard work and keeping everybody informed through Sustainable Views. Doubtless the rest of Trump's presidency will have plenty of twists and turns, and to keep up with what his actions mean for sustainability, we'll be making sure to deliver all the latest news and analysis on regulations and policy decision-making on Sustainable Views. If you haven't already, do sign up for a free trial of Sustainable Views and to receive our daily newsletter at sustainableviews.com. We'll be back with this podcast on a regular basis very soon, and if there's anything you'd like you'd like to see us or the other Sustainable Views journalists discuss, please do send your suggestions to me at philippa.nuttall@ft.com. Thanks for listening. I'll speak to you soon.