Catholics brace for environmental setbacks for next four years

EarthBeat Weekly
Your weekly newsletter about faith and climate change

November 8, 2024

(OSV News file illustration/Mike Crupi, Catholic Courier)

With the election Tuesday of Donald Trump to a second term as president, the forecast for federal environmental and climate policy for the next four years is bleak at best, Catholics worried this week.

The first convicted felon set to enter the White House, one who also faced indictments for his role in attempting to overturn the 2020 election he lost, Trump was hostile to environmental regulations during his first term and renewed much of those attacks during his recent campaign.

Trump has dismissed the scientific consensus of human-driven climate change as a "hoax" and repeated the refrain of "drill, baby, drill" — positions that stand to dangerously heat the planet and contribute to exposing millions of people worldwide to devastating and economically ruinous climate impacts. He has also pledged to remove the U.S. from the Paris Agreement on climate change a second time, and hinted at even exiting the U.N. treaty underlying it.

The reelection of Trump comes just days before countries, including the U.S., gather in Baku, Azerbaijan, for the latest United Nations climate summit.

Trump's second term will span much of the rest of 2020s, a decade during which climate scientists have said global greenhouse gas emissions — primarily released from burning coal, oil and gas — must be nearly halved in order to keep the Paris Agreement goal of limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius within reach.

The world's largest source and user of oil and gas, the U.S. is also the leading historical source of greenhouse gas emissions and second only to China today. During his victory speech early Wednesday morning in Florida, Trump lauded that the U.S. has "more liquid gold than any country in the world."

A joint statement this week from Catholic Climate Covenant and the Laudato Si' Movement said "We know there will be challenges ahead," noting "significant steps backward on climate action" during Trump's first term.

"We call upon and seek to work with President Trump's administration and Congress to help ensure that the momentum generated on climate policies in the past four years continues, so that current and future generations inherit a safer planet," the statement said.

Catholic sisters were among those processing what a second Trump term will mean for the planet.

Adrian Dominican Sr. Durstyne "Dusty" Farnan, who represents the Dominican Leadership Conference at the United Nations.Farnan, was on a Zoom call Nov. 6 with environmental advocates preparing for the COP29 climate conference.

"People on the call were dismayed [at Trump's election]," Farnan told Chris Herlinger, international correspondent for Global Sisters Report. She added many expressed fear and worry, because when it comes to climate change, "we [the U.S.] must be engaged."

Farnan said that people outside the U.S. still look to its leadership on the climate issue but are now deeply worried that a new Trump administration will downplay or ignore concerns about the climate crisis.

Sr. Irene O'Neill, a member of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph, said what worries her and others committed to global solidarity and justice work is that they believe the Trump ethos is antithetical to what grounds the work of Catholic sisters: commitment to community.

"It's not money that keeps us alive," she said of American society, "but community." Sisters, she said, "have community, and we model it."

What else is new on EarthBeat:

Faith groups welcome Indigenous rights advances at UN biodiversity summit

by Brian Roewe

COP16 ended without decisions in key areas around implementing a global conservation treaty. But faith groups applauded the summit's establishment of a permanent body for Indigenous peoples in conservation matters.

What's happening in other climate news:

In new term, Trump set to go after measures that are doing the most to fight climate change —Jennifer Mcdermott and Matthew Daly for the Associated Press

Everything you need to know about Project 2025's plan for the EPA —Amy Westervelt for Drilled Media

What Trump’s victory means for climate change —Coral Davenport and Lisa Friedman for The New York Times

Public lands outlook under Trump to face 'copious litigation' —Bobby Magill for Bloomberg Law

Hours after Trump win, Biden moves to limit oil drilling in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge —Maxine Joselow for the Washington Post

Nearly all of US states are facing droughts, an unprecedented number —Marina Dunbar for the Guardian

Climate change identified as main driver of worsening drought in the Western United States —Ian James for the Los Angeles Times

Final Beat:

Worry for the future of the U.S. from women religious, like those described above, isn't limited to those living within its borders.

In a conversation before the election, a Catholic sister abroad told me she's been praying for the people of the U.S., that they "use the power to vote carefully and responsibly. I mean, I don't think people are listening to the two candidates." Trump, she said, is "one of the most immoral people I've heard of."

"I worry," the sister continued. "I worry about your people in the U.S., and what's going on there."

As the second Trump administration unfolds, EarthBeat will be there reporting on how its policies are impacting climate change and the environment, and how Catholic and faith communities respond.

Thanks for reading EarthBeat.

Brian Roewe
Environment Correspondent
National Catholic Reporter
broewe@ncronline.org
Instagram: @broewe_ncr