With Trump 2.0 Looming, What’s Next for the US Climate Movement?

Climate activists rally and ready for the fight ahead.

Jane Fonda speaks at the December 3 event in Washington DC. Credit: Screen shot from event live-steam

The fight for climate justice and accountability must and will continue – and make no mistake, it is a fight.

That was the crystalizing message of a climate activism event earlier this week aiming to rally and inspire the US climate movement to forge ahead through the looming storm that is the sequel of the Donald Trump presidency. Aptly titled “The Climate Fight Ahead,” the event, organized by Fossil Free Media along with dozens of climate and progressive organizational partners, brought together movement leaders and environmental justice champions to reflect on the present moment and to highlight actions and strategies for advancing the climate agenda during Trump’s second term.

“Tonight is about shining a light on the path ahead,” Cassidy DiPaola, communications director at Fossil Free Media, said at the event’s opening.

From activists on the frontlines of industrial pollution like Roishetta Ozane, to environmental and human rights lawyer Steven Donziger, to Democratic members of Congress like Representatives Melanie Stansbury and Maxwell Frost, leaders from across the climate movement took to the stage to share their stories and deliver rallying calls during, what feels like for many, a time of darkness and despair.

“Activism is the way to rise above despair and feel hope,” Jane Fonda, the actress and climate action advocate, told the audience gathered at the George Washington University auditorium in DC. Dressed in a scarlet red coat, she proudly declared herself “part of the Resistance” to Trumpian MAGA politics and policies that promise to destroy environmental protections, trample civil liberties and human rights, and dampen progress on clean energy.

Fonda identified two strategic priorities to both push back and move forward during the Trump 2.0 era. One is to “focus on down ballot races” and work on electing progressive climate champions at the local and state levels, work that Fonda is supporting through her climate PAC. The other is to campaign around ending government subsidies to the fossil fuel industry. “We are giving $20 billion of our tax money to the very industry that’s killing us, poisoning our air, poisoning our water, and destroying our climate. It’s obscene!” Fonda said. She noted there may be an opportunity to demand that Congress halt these subsidies during the expected battle around renewing the tax cuts passed during Trump’s first term.

But even before the Trump administration takes over Washington, climate activists are organizing around pressuring the Biden administration to take bold moves on nixing fossil fuel permits during Biden’s final few weeks in office. At the top of their list of demands is a call for the Department of Energy to deny pending permits for six massive liquified natural gas (LNG) terminals, which, if built, could have a greenhouse gas emissions impact equivalent to roughly 1,000 coal plants. Denying these permits “is the single most important thing that Biden can do for the climate on his way out of office,” says the direct action group Climate Defiance, which is planning a week of action December 9 – 12 culminating in a blockade of the DOE on Dec. 12.

Another climate action campaign focused on holding some of the biggest oil and gas companies accountable for the harms stemming from their products is likely to see even more momentum and strategic prioritization during the upcoming Trump era. Dubbed “Make Polluters Pay,” it aims to compel companies like ExxonMobil, BP, and Chevron to help foot the bill for increasingly costly climate change impacts that are damaging communities across the country. The two main approaches for doing so are through litigation (brought by states and municipalities seeking to recover damages) and legislation (states enacting ‘climate superfund’ bills that make Big Oil liable for paying climate costs incurred by the state).

“Make Polluters Pay is work that doesn’t really rely on Washington. This is a fight that plays out in statehouses and courtrooms across the country,” Jamie Henn, a climate activist and executive director of Fossil Free Media, told me.

“We saw a surge in local action during the first Trump administration. That was when fossil fuel divestment really took off, when we saw the youth climate strikes proliferate around the world,” he added. “I think this time around, the make polluters pay push will look like something similar.”

Earlier this year Vermont became the first state in the country to pass a climate superfund bill into law. New York could very soon be next, as its version of this legislation passed the state legislature several months ago and awaits signature from Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul, who has until the end of the year to act on it.

“New York will be the next state that passes a climate superfund bill but it won’t be the last. There are more states – Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oregon, California, Delaware, Maryland, Jersey, others, have already proposed legislation, and we think there could be many, many more,” Henn told the audience at last Tuesday evening’s event. “That is our job now, to use every tool in our toolbox outside of DC, back in our communities, to find ways to hold this industry accountable.”

This call for polluter accountability was echoed by Cora Martin, a 17-year-old student from Asheville, North Carolina who spoke about both the devastation and resilience of her hometown that was hammered by Hurricane Helene.

“It is still surreal and intense knowing some of the places you hold closest to your heart have become unrecognizable rubble,” she said. And yet, she pointed out, “this is not an original experience - Hurricane Katrina, Milton, Irma, Harvey, Matthew, Sandy, California wildfires, flooding in Valencia, Spain, heatwaves and monsoons. The excessive burning of fossil fuels is increasing the frequency and force of natural disasters that are consistently devastating more and more of our home planet.”

Martin said the companies that profit from fossil fuels need to be held to account. “Like western North Carolina has come together to restore and rebuild, it is essential that as a movement we come together to hold these big corporations accountable for the increasing harm that is caused to places like Asheville.”

Coming together and uniting, standing in solidarity as a compassionate and intersectional movement, will be especially important in the years ahead.

“We must not turn inward,” Fonda said. “We have to stand and face the coming years together.”

Movement leaders say it will also be essential to muster up courage, and be prepared for an enduring battle.

“We’re part of a long legacy and movement that has found ways to fight and bounce back from the darkest times. But the only way that happens is if you get to work,” Henn told me. “The best way to feel more hopeful for the future is to start fighting for it.”