The climate crisis is demonstrably killing people. These deaths are measurable, documented, and ongoing. Despite this, the President of the United States effectively abdicated responsibility to protect citizens from this threat last Thursday, announcing the repeal of the Environmental Protection Agency’s “endangerment finding” – the determination that greenhouse gases endanger human health and welfare. He dismissed the crisis as a scam, a giant scam.
This decision reverses a position the federal government has held for nearly two decades. The EPA first issued the “endangerment finding” in , concluding that emissions driving the climate crisis contribute to extreme heat, intensified storms, rising sea levels, wildfires, and degraded air quality, all with direct consequences for human life and safety. This wasn’t merely a symbolic gesture; it was the legal foundation for modern US climate regulation, enabling the government to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act and establishing emissions standards for vehicles, power plants, and industry.
Removing this finding doesn’t simply weaken the Clean Air Act; it dismantles the authority that underpinned those protections. It represents a withdrawal of official recognition of a danger already being experienced by millions of Americans. This action is consistent with a pattern of behavior where the administration redefines established facts to suit a particular narrative.
This tendency to reshape reality was evident in the response to the presidential election, where documented electoral defeat was reframed as fraud
, and in attempts to redefine racism to exclusively focus on alleged discrimination against white Americans. Now, confronted with a warming planet, the administration is risking something even more consequential: exacerbating an existing danger to its constituents.
Across the country, people are already confronting the climate crisis – living near toxic fracking sites, experiencing smoke-choked skies, and enduring strained power grids. The climate crisis is no longer a forecast; it is an incident report. And its harms are not distributed equally.
Black Americans, for example, are disproportionately likely to live near polluting infrastructure and suffer higher rates of premature death tied to pollution-related illness. Environmental justice advocates warn that dismantling the endangerment finding removes a crucial legal shield against these harms, leaving frontline communities even more vulnerable as climate risks intensify. This vulnerability extends to acute disaster impact, as demonstrated by the Eaton fire in California, which destroyed over 16,000 structures and disproportionately impacted communities with limited resources.
There is a strategic irony to this retreat. In refusing to address the climate crisis, the administration risks undermining the nationalist politics it espouses. The climate crisis does not respect national borders. Drought, crop failure, and rising sea levels are already displacing populations, fueling migration flows that wealthier nations struggle to absorb. Weakening climate mitigation while simultaneously hardening borders ignores the causal link between the two – a posture that could intensify the displacement pressures it claims to resist.
The administration’s actions are not solely driven by ideological considerations. Economic incentives are also at play. Erasing the finding would benefit polluters and the oligarchs who profit from them. The retreat from climate responsibility is not passive; the administration is actively working to sustain the fossil fuel industry, directing the Pentagon to purchase coal-fired power, effectively financing the very industry fueling planetary warming.
this decision reflects a governing pattern exhibited for years: distancing oneself from responsibility for harm, even when the consequences are measurable and grave. Recognition of danger underpins our laws, enabling enforcement and accountability. Without findings like the EPA’s report, the government’s response to climate harm relies on moral duty rather than enforceable obligation – a posture more vulnerable to political discretion. Without formal recognition of danger, citizens and states lose a key legal foothold for compelling federal action when disaster strikes.
Should this erasure withstand inevitable court challenges, the government’s declared obligation to confront climate realities with the full weight of its authority would disappear. The harm, however, would not. The fires will still burn, the heat will still kill, and the floods will still come. The President’s decision is not merely a change in policy; it is a refusal to fulfill his duty to protect the American people.
The United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, and its declared intent to withdraw from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and the Green Climate Fund, further demonstrate a broader pattern of disengagement from international climate efforts. This withdrawal, which took effect on , marks the second time the US has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement. The administration has also called for the US’ departure from over 60 other international organizations related to climate change, biodiversity, and renewable energy, labeling them wasteful, ineffective, or harmful.
These actions are expected to accelerate the defunding of key multilateral and bilateral climate institutions and programming, exacerbating an existing financial crisis within the UN system, particularly given the US’ refusal to pay its contribution to the regular UN budget. The global average temperature exceeded 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels in , underscoring the urgency of coordinated global climate action, which this administration appears intent on undermining.
