With a new federal administration unreceptive to the effects of global warming, where does that leave the San Diego environmental community in its battle against climate change?

“Uncertain, we don’t fully know – that’s the truth,” said Nicole Capretz, founder/CEO at Climate Action Campaign, a nonprofit committed to combating the climate crisis by creating a zero carbon future through effective and equitable policy action. “[Trump] is so unpredictable.”

During his first term, the Trump administration dismantled major climate policies and rolled back nearly 100 environmental rules governing clean air, water, wildlife, and toxic chemicals. The bulk of the rollbacks were carried out by the Environmental Protection Agency, which weakened Obama-era limits on planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, cars, and trucks while removing protections from more than half the nation’s wetlands.

The Trump administration’s deregulatory actions were estimated to significantly increase greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade. Most notably, his previous administration rescinded The Paris Agreement in 2017, a legally binding international treaty on climate change adopted by 196 parties, removing the U.S. participation in it. That agreement sought to strengthen the global response to climate change by reaffirming the goal of limiting global temperature increase to well below 2 degrees Celsius while pursuing efforts to limit the increase to 1.5 degrees.

Shortly after the Nov. 5 presidential election, in a memo to CAC members discussing its repercussions, Capretz noted: “Climate progress will most likely stop at the national level. CAC was born because of our work creating and securing the City’s groundbreaking 2015 Climate Action Plan. Four years later, we stood our ground when Sempra spent millions and fought to kill Community Choice Energy.

“In every battle, we have been outspent and outmanned by fossil fuel interests, and we have still been successful. Our work must go on. we’re pushing forward. We will continue to mobilize for bold climate action, and we will continue to hold our leaders and governments accountable to their promises.”

The City’s 2022 Climate Action Plan lays out a set of six strategies, 21 measures, 17 performance targets, and 190 actions and supporting actions to achieve the City’s interim 2030 fair-share reduction goal and ambitious 2035 goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions. The strategies include quantified performance targets, outlining how the City will track progress and achieve its overall GHG reduction goals. Each measure is broken down into discrete actions and supporting actions that work together to achieve performance targets and emissions-reduction goals.

Capretz was especially concerned about the consequences of the new presidential administration’s likely upcoming challenge to President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. That act made the single largest investment in climate and energy in American history, enabling America to tackle the climate crisis and advance environmental justice.

In response, Capretz said, “We’re expecting a rollback in the IRA, and its billions in financial investments in climate solutions including clean-tech (any process, product, or service reducing negative environmental impacts through significant energy efficiency improvements). A lot of that has already been distributed and can’t easily be rolled back.”

In the meantime, while the new administration may try to reverse the past administration’s climate initiatives, Capretz pointed out that local governmental entities will “continue to go full bore to invest and transform the economy into clean energy. With clean energy, we don’t want to be reliant on the grid (a system for distributing electricity). We want to be our climate-resilience fortress.”

Capretz pointed out San Diegans are making progress advancing Public Power San Diego, a coalition of environmental and social justice groups fighting for a more sustainable and just publicly-owned utility. “We have two public power projects to put clean energy on the grid and more battery storage to make our energy more resilient and reliable,” she noted.

So where do things go from here now in the local fight against climate change?

“There is a lot we don’t know yet,” answered Capretz. “Perhaps a loss of investment in our region that would have taken place under the Inflation Reduction Act, as well as investments in climate-related infrastructure upgrades. A lot of the rules don’t apply. We are in uncharted waters.”