Inclusive Development International deplores the revocation of the “endangerment finding” by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (E.P.A.). The scientific conclusion that greenhouse gas emissions pose a danger to public health and welfare has underpinned nearly all U.S. climate regulations for the past 17 years. Its repeal by the Trump Administration will not only turbocharge its dismantling of those regulations—aimed at curbing greenhouse gas pollution from cars, powerplants, oil and gas wells and other sources—but it will also hamstring the ability of future presidents to reinstate climate regulations in the future.
Inclusive Development International condemns this decision, which denies the overwhelming scientific consensus about the human costs of climate change and the lived experience of communities in the United States and around the world who have already suffered its impacts in the form of deadly storms, flooding, wildfires and droughts.
“This is nothing short of ecocide by the Trump Administration,” said David Pred, Executive Director of Inclusive Development International. “As the world’s biggest historic emitter of greenhouse gases, the United States bears the largest responsibility for halting the climate crisis, but this wanton deregulatory action hits the gas in reverse, with full knowledge of the severe and widespread damage that it will do to the planet and its ability to sustain current and future generations.”
Inclusive Development International has been working with communities around the world to stop harmful fossil fuel projects for years. Our focus has been on preventing the local health and environmental impacts of fossil fuel extraction and use, as well as the long-term, global impacts of climate change, which fall disproportionately on communities and countries that have contributed the least to the problem.
This misguided move by the E.P.A. will rightfully face immediate legal challenges, but its direct implications on U.S. policy, and the example it sets for governments and multilateral institutions around the world, will make it much harder to expedite the clean energy transition that is our only hope for maintaining a liveable planet. This only strengthens our resolve to continue fighting fossil fuel expansion and defending the right of all peoples to live in a safe and healthy environment now and into the future.