Donald Trump, an avowed climate skeptic, has made no secret of his plans for his second presidency.

On the campaign trail and since his reelection, he has pledged to boost fossil fuel exploitation, cancel tax credits for electric vehicles and clean energy projects, unravel environmental regulations, and claw back unspent funds from what he has called the "green new scam," landmark climate legislation passed by outgoing President Joe Biden.

Trump's rhetoric has echoed many proposals outlined in Project 2025, a 900-page playbook by the ultraconservative Heritage Foundation. Though Trump publicly distanced himself from the plan, several authors have been nominated for key positions.

They include Russ Vought, who as a top budget official would help set the administration's priorities and who, in Project 2025, stressed the overarching importance of the "president's agenda."

"We have no illusions that this is going to be a very destructive administration," said Rachel Cleetus, the policy director for climate and energy at the US-based Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). "They are anti-science at their core."

Cleetus said she had yet to see any indication from the incoming government that it would use accepted climate research to "help guide good policymaking" and act in the public interest.

"Instead of independent judgment and expertise, there's a lot of almost cult-like loyalty to a president who has taken a very sharp posture against clean energy, completely beholden to fossil fuel interests," she told DW.

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And with both chambers of the Republican-controlled Congress and the conservative-majority Supreme Court likely on the president's side, at least until the midterm elections in 2026, Cleetus said there were "very........

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