Madakumbara et al. / UCLA
Ten years ago, global warming did not plague Arizona with lethal triple-digit heat in March. The Arctic was not posting record-low winter sea ice and record-high habitat destruction. The previous decade was not the hottest ever recorded. And, ten years ago, the EPA could still defend our climate. Now, none of those statements is true. As 2026 makes painfully clear, global warming is worse than ever. The EPA was once a safeguard, but now, like the rest of the far-right government, positive climate action is being treated as a liability, raising the disturbing question: how does a decade of climate progress suddenly come to a halt at the very moment climate action is most urgently needed?
The Environmental Protection Agency (E.P.A.), created by the Nixon administration in 1970 amid growing alarm over polluted urban areas, was established to protect America’s air, water, and land. Although the organization’s power has ebbed and flowed under different presidents, the agency has always maintained the capacity to carry out that purpose.
This capacity was strengthened by the 2009 endangerment finding, which inaugurated the classification of greenhouse gas emissions as a threat. Although Trump, during his first term, took a different approach, the E.P.A. was still ultimately able to reduce coal emissions by bolstering heat-tracking across statewide facilities. Then, under the Biden Administration, the E.P.A. launched a renewed push for electric vehicles and methane limits, which scholars argued was a landmark step toward a permanent net-zero emissions trajectory.
Overall, under previous administrations, the E.P.A. has always had the ammo to successfully carry out the initial Nixonian goal of environmental monitoring. Even under conservative and right-wing governments, the agency has achieved net positive environmental change, lowering emissions and reducing pollution. That is, until now, when the E.P.A. may have finally hit a lethal wall with Trump’s victory in the 2024 election.
The long-standing institutional resilience of the E.P.A. finally met its match this February: last month, Trump revoked the E.P.A.’s 2009 endangerment finding, the legal precedent the agency used to combat emissions. Previously, the 2009 endangerment finding served as the legal scaffolding for deeming climate action a necessary consideration in federal politics and for regulating greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act.
This action highlights the stark differences between Trump’s first and second terms. During Trump’s first term, he simply limited the E.P.A.’s reach rather than cutting off its arm. Now, the Justice Department has filed only 16 civil complaints on the E.P.A.’s behalf, a record low.
Trump’s shot at the E.P.A. wasn’t a singular hit-and-run. His offensive has included several other attacks on environmental protection, specifically targeting mercury and other gaseous toxins, aimed at rolling back Biden’s revolutionary green policies. This rollback allows plants to emit more mercury than in the previous two decades, shattering the projected 70 percent reduction in mercury emissions and 66 percent reduction in nickel and arsenic emissions, and resulting in an additional $420 million in projected health costs over the next decade.
The worst aspect of the reversal of progress is that Trump’s rollback came at the most dire time for climate action. In March, Fortune demonstrated that the last three years were the hottest ever recorded, and that if it weren’t for a rare La Niña wind pattern throughout the period, temperatures would’ve been even worse. Thus, it’s easy to see why other national governments are moving in the opposite direction compared to Trump.
At the beginning of March, the European Union granted foundational approval for a 90 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, agreeing to integrate climate policy with all economic legislation through a legally binding agreement. This trajectory of progress is also evident outside Europe. India announced a comprehensive plan for a clean-energy transition by 2035, projected to lower emissions by 47 percent.
Of course, these countries haven’t solved the climate crisis, but that’s not the point. Rather, the takeaway is that these governments still recognize climate change as urgent enough to act on. Yet without the U.S., which accounts for 12.60 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, how will climate change ever become a thing of the past?
The E.P.A. is not an obscure office buried in the federal apparatus; it is the sole federal institution tasked with translating ecological risk into public protection. As the executive branch continues to destroy the only federal agency that stands for environmentalism, the margin of safety between ordinary life and environmental collapse grows ever thinner, showing how a government that abandons its duty to protect the climate does not merely fail the present but also forfeits its claim to the future.
The Zeitgeist aims to publish ideas worth discussing. The views presented are solely those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial board.
