How Project 2025 and Agenda 47 Could Shape U.S. Climate Policy

As the United States faces intensifying climate challenges, the policies of the next administration could determine — Project 2025 and Agenda 47 —reveal a vision that could see the dismantling of environmental protections, undermine clean energy progress, and exacerbate climate risks. While these plans are not yet implemented, their detailed preparation and alignment with past conservative priorities suggest significant potential for adoption. However, there remain considerable legal, political, and public hurdles that could complicate their enactment.

This article examines what Project 2025 and Agenda 47 entail, who is driving them, and the profound risks they pose to climate progress.

Agenda 47, the platform of Trump and the Republicans, includes proposals to expand fossil fuel production, reduce regulations, and cut restrictions on oil, natural gas, and coal. Noticeably absent? Any mention of renewables.

While Project 2025 and Agenda 47 share overlapping conservative goals, they are distinct initiatives. Project 2025 is an initiative by the Heritage Foundation, designed to prepare a comprehensive conservative policy agenda for the next Republican administration. It builds on the Heritage Foundation’s historical influence in conservative policymaking, including contributions to Trump's 2016 administration blueprint. Here’s a sample of their plan: Repeal the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which include funding for renewables.
Eliminate carbon capture utilization and storage programs, disregarding the impact of additional carbon emissions.
Scrap energy efficiency standards for appliances, encouraging more fossil fuel consumption.
Close the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, removing federal support for renewable energy.

While Trump’s Agenda 47 and Project 2025 align on many priorities, such as deregulation and fossil fuel expansion, Trump has distanced himself from directly associating with Project 2025, reportedly because he prefers to appear as the sole driver of his policy agenda. Nonetheless, the substantial overlap in objectives suggests that a Trump administration could draw heavily from Project 2025’s proposals.

Who is Behind Project 2025?

Over 100 members of Trump’s previous administration devised Project 2025. Russ Vought, the author of Agenda 47, also wrote one of the chapters in Project 2025. And now the Heritage Foundation is praising Vought as Trump's pick as the Director of the Office of Management and Business (OMB). The Heritage Foundation vetted potential federal employees using a questionnaire that screens their loyalty to the mission. From these screenings, they plan to provide 20,000 government officials to hire and implement Project 2025. They're filling positions with Heritage Foundation contributors quickly. John McEntee, who built the database, is a particular favorite of Donald Trump and likely to be the head of the White House personnel office.

This level of preparation—coupled with Trump’s proven reliance on loyalists—suggests that Project 2025 has the infrastructure needed to move quickly within an aligned administration. Yet political dynamics, including the Republican party’s control of Congress and potential backlash from moderate Republicans, could shape how much of the plan is implemented.

According to Trump's staffers, Trump's claim that he’s not associated with Project 2025 isn’t because he disagrees with it or won’t influence it. It’s just that he doesn’t like it looking like someone else is running the show. Undercover climate journalists discovered that preparation continued, including developing hours of training videos for the new Trump administration. Now that Trump has won, his allies are boasting about the reality of their no-longer-hidden agenda to make Project 2025 a reality.

Why Is Project 2025 a Climate Catastrophe?

Energy Innovation, a nonpartisan energy and climate policy think tank, did the math. If implemented, Project 2025 would add 4,920 million metric tons of carbon emissions by 2030 — equivalent to adding another "India’s worth" of carbon emissions.

But don't worry! According to Project 2025, there's no reason for concern –– climate change isn’t real. Those mega-hurricanes, hotter summers, glaciers melting? They say it's all hype from the “climate change alarm industry,” meant to curb American progress. So much for keeping global warming to 2°C! Under Project 2025, the U.S. would exit the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. It would also shut down the Office of Domestic Climate Policy, ending government research on climate and disconnecting scientists globally from critical climate data.

No News on Climate is Bad News

Extreme weather events caused by climate change are awful, but at least we're warned about them, right? Maybe not anymore. Project 2025 also restricts scientific research and public access to critical climate information by:

Breaking up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and making the National Weather Service (NWS) a paid service. Companies and governments rely on those reports to prepare and share that information with the public.
Requiring the National Hurricane Center to not “support any one side in the climate debate.” This is like suggesting NASA’s data stay impartial on the flat Earth debate. The science on climate change is established science.
Downsizing the National Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, specifically targeting its climate change research. Its role is to use unbiased science to enable better forecasts and earlier warnings for natural disasters. Early storm warnings are essential to help protect people’s lives and property from severe impacts.

While this aligns with the broader conservative goal of reducing federal spending, proposals to commercialize the NWS could face public backlash. Recent polling shows that Americans, across party lines, value government-provided weather services as critical for safety and disaster preparedness.

Decarbonization, Meet Recarbonization

This plan lights a fire under fossil fuel development while smothering support for renewable energy. The U.S. spends between $10 to $50 billion annually on fossil fuel subsidies; Project 2025 would drive this spending even higher.

You think that land is protected because endangered species live there? Well, according to Project 2025, our coal mines and oil wells are even more at risk, and they take priority over habitats for endangered species and migrant birds:

Caribou, polar bears, and whales—move aside! Oil and gas drilling are set to move into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
It's a coal rush as federal lands in Wyoming and Montana will be leased for coal mining at rock-bottom prices.

Renewables are becoming more affordable by the day, even outpacing fossil fuels in cost-effectiveness in some regions. Yet Project 2025 prioritizes fossil fuels by sidelining clean, low-cost renewable energy. What else is on the chopping block?

Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, because taxpayer dollars should not be used to "...subsidize preferred businesses and energy resources…” Unless, of course, they're fossil fuels!
Clean Energy Corps, which invests in, researches, and delivers clean energy solutions.
Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, which funds projects to scale clean energy creation and distribution.
Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E), which funds the most innovative clean energy research.

Fuel economy standards would also be rolled back, forcing cars to consume more gas. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would be prevented from setting future fuel standards, and even California wouldn’t be allowed to set stricter emissions standards.

And Trump's recent selection of Lee Zeldin to lead the EPA sets the organization's goals on rolling back regulations that are forcing business to struggle.

However, clean energy's momentum—bolstered by IRA-driven private investments and falling renewable costs—may present a counterweight. Recent reports show that major corporations are continuing to expand solar and wind operations even amidst political uncertainty, creating a constituency with economic interests in maintaining these initiatives.

Project 2025 is Bad for Climate and the Economy

Beyond the environmental devastation, Project 2025 would also demolish the U.S. economy. Removing funding for clean energy would result in a loss of 1.7 million jobs by 2030 while creating just a handful of new fossil fuel jobs. Who's going to benefit from this? Fossil fuel executives, whose profits could protect them from climate change a little longer than the rest of us.

What Can You Do?

As we await Trump's policy decisions, remember that despite what Project 2025 might claim, climate action does not prevent economic growth. Clean energy is our future, so what can you do if we can't expect our incoming federal government to lead us there?

Personally – Your banking choices matter. Researching and choosing a bank that supports clean energy investments rather than fossil fuels is one step that you can take to protect your future. At Bank.Green, we make it easier for individuals and businesses to identify financial institutions that align with their climate values. By switching to a green bank, you can ensure your money is contributing to the transition to renewables, not exacerbating the climate crisis.

Locally – Support your communities and organizations that support local climate candidates and policies, such as Lead Locally or Climate Changemakers.

Globally – COP29 (Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) has just ended. You can learn how climate advocates feel about these elections and see what climate actions organizations, corporations, and governments are taking worldwide.