Since Donald Trump and his unelected billionaire advisor, Elon Musk, came to power in January, the pair have followed the old Silicon Valley tech motto to “move fast and break things.” That’s bad news for the climate. Since his inauguration on Jan. 20, 2025, Trump has issued hundreds of executive orders freezing climate spending, withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, and fast-tracking fossil fuel projects. 

The good news is that climate justice movement organizers nationwide were prepared for the threats of Trump’s second term and are fighting against his administration’s regressive political agenda and for a greener future.

“We are already seeing our communities on the front lines being responsive [to Trump’s attacks],” says KD Chavez, executive director of Climate Justice Alliance (CJA). “They are continuing to provide mutual support, they’re continuing to organize, they’re resisting, and they’re creating regenerative climate solutions that are replicable.”

“When we say front line, we mean the people that are dealing with climate injustice day to day,” explains Chavez. “It’s folks in communities that have been intentionally marginalized and disinvested from for decades, and they’ve been having to come up with inventive solutions with, sometimes, shoestring budgets.” 

Chavez points to the Greater Birmingham Alliance to Stop Pollution (GASP) as one example of a front-line community tackling environmental injustice. That nonprofit organization has succeeded in securing penalties for polluters in predominantly Black neighborhoods in Birmingham, Alabama, and is now working with the City of Birmingham to create a climate action plan with climate justice principles at its core. 

“When we aggregate those solutions, a just transition and a future that includes ecological liberation and liberation for the people and land doesn’t seem too far away because we have tangible examples of it happening all over.”

More than 90 member organizations work under CJA’s umbrella, each furthering climate justice aims in their communities. Trump’s rapid-fire rollbacks have already impacted the work of many of CJA’s members and other groups like them. 

Some of the most significant disruptions to climate progress nationwide come from the administration’s federal funding freeze, enacted on Jan. 27, 2025, and attacks on the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which includes provisions to help fight climate change, promote environmental justice, and transition the United States to cleaner energy. Among Trump’s many Inauguration Day executive orders is one aimed at gutting that legislation, including terminating the office established to oversee the IRA’s implementation and halting disbursements of allocated funds. The same executive order also demanded a pause on all “Green New Deal” funding. 

Of $50 billion in grants awarded under the IRA, $32 billion had not yet been disbursed when President Joe Biden left office in early 2025 and is at risk of being clawed back, according to The Washington Post. The EPA is meant to be responsible for disbursing about $20 billion of the unspent funds. On Feb. 12, 2025, the EPA’s new administrator, Lee Zeldin, announced on X that the agency would rescind those contracts and no longer disburse the funds.

Even before that announcement, the agency informed some grant recipients their funding had been paused until further notice. The federal funding freeze also disrupted at least $19 billion in EPA funding to thousands of state and local governments and nonprofit organizations, according to Inside Climate News. 

The effects of these funding disruptions are already being felt. Tens of thousands of energy and infrastructure projects nationwide are now threatened or canceled, many of which were meant to benefit underserved communities and those on the front lines of the climate crisis. CJA was among the groups that lost some EPA funding following Zeldin’s announcement.

That funding was part of the EPA’s Environmental Justice Thriving Communities grantmaking program, which would have allowed CJA to seed community-based organizations advancing environmental justice in the western U.S. Chavez called the program’s cancellation one of the White House’s “attacks on working class communities” in a Feb. 13 press release.

Funding disruptions have also hit individuals and families as federally funded programs that help families save money on energy costs—such as weatherization assistance and home energy rebate programs—are now in limbo. 

Meech Carter, clean energy campaigns director at the North Carolina League of Conservation Voters, helps state residents access funding through programs like these. She says her organization has received little guidance on which programs will continue when the federal funding freeze is lifted. “When I talk to residents now, I have to tell them, ‘This is a very changing landscape, we appreciate your patience, and we are trying our best to get you the assistance that you need.’”

She adds, “We don’t want people to have unreasonable expectations, and we know there’s a possibility that these programs will be impacted.”

A group of nonprofit organizations and Democratic attorneys general in 22 states and Washington, D.C. have already challenged the Trump administration’s federal funding freeze in court. Two federal courts issued temporary restraining orders in early February 2025 to stop the freeze. On Feb. 25, 2025, a federal judge in one of these cases agreed to grant the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction while the case moves through the court. However, grantees have continued to report they cannot access funds awarded for climate projects. 

Meanwhile, environmental law organizations are gearing up to fight Trump’s regressive climate agenda. It’s too soon to know how those legal fights will play out and whether the Trump administration will heed court decisions. But the litigation itself serves an important purpose. “The way that we’re thinking about it right now is ‘How do you grind down and bog down the administration?’” says Erik Schlenker-Goodrich, executive director of the Western Environmental Law Center. “They are pretending that there are no laws binding them, but in fact, these laws exist, and we will check them on that through federal court litigation.”

While litigation on the federal level focuses on halting rollbacks and protecting vital programs, organizers say on the state and local levels, the climate movement is still looking to gain ground. “Local and state action is going to be really important over these next four years, and there are some really big opportunities there,” says Carter. 

One of those opportunities could be broadening the climate movement in the U.S. by rallying Republican politicians and constituencies behind IRA programs. Although no Republican backed the IRA during the Biden administration, Republican-held areas have benefited most from the legislation since its enactment. Nearly 60% of IRA projects, representing 85% of investments and 68% of jobs, are in Republican congressional districts.

Carter sees the effects of disruptions on North Carolinians, where just over half of voters cast ballots for Trump in the 2024 presidential election. Many in the state were counting on energy assistance, tax rebates, or new employment opportunities on infrastructure or clean energy projects—the futures of which are now uncertain. 

If Republican lawmakers want to remain in office in North Carolina and other Republican-held areas, they may need to bend to constituents who do not want to see cost-saving programs stripped away. “This is a big opportunity to leverage those connections and mobilize representatives to push back,” says Carter. “If that funding is taken away, that has a real impact for people across the political spectrum.”

Focusing on the material benefits of climate resilience programs has already been a winning strategy elsewhere, including in Schlenker-Goodrich’s home state of New Mexico. While New Mexico has Democratic leaders, it is a top fossil fuel producer. Transitioning to cleaner energy promises to reshape the state’s economy and workforce. Still, the Clear Horizons Act, legislation aimed at decarbonization, is progressing through the state legislature. Schlenker-Goodrich says it has been successful because “climate equity principles are built into the bill,” ensuring communities on the front lines of climate change and those most affected by the energy transition will be targeted for support. 

Messaging around the Clear Horizons Act in New Mexico highlights how the legislation would not only reduce pollution but also create new jobs, spur small business growth, and improve infrastructure. Carter says these talking points are persuasive in Republican-led constituencies and perhaps even on the federal level. “It’s something [to keep in mind], especially when you have a federal administration that is clearly very concerned with cost cutting,” she says. “We should be talking about cost benefits of renewable energy, of electrification, [and] the burdens of high energy bills.”

Looking ahead, the climate movement is not only facing Trump’s early top-down attacks but also fatigue and harmful misinformation campaigns seeking to divide it. “People are getting burned out,” Carter says. “I think it has felt like that for a while in the environmental space, but with the very quick dismantling of federal programs, it puts a lot of concern, fear, and just general exhaustion into the advocacy community.”

To combat these threats and ensure continued progress toward climate justice, organizers say building power within communities is more critical than ever. This work begins on the local level and requires critics of the Trump administration to be strategic in their organizing and communication. Carter, who organizes with North Carolinians across the political spectrum, suggests focusing conversations with neighbors on shared goals and material concerns rather than misinformation. “Say, Hey, if you need help with your HVAC, you need to call your legislator and tell them ‘I need this funding,’” Carter explains. “This is a huge opportunity to unite people.”

Looking at the bigger picture, Schlenker-Goodrich urges imagination and even optimism. “I think this moment compels us to think pretty expansively about not only how we defend against this moment, but also, how do we create something new that emerges out of it?”