Boston experienced unseasonably warm temperatures this November, prompting concerns surrounding the future of the City’s environmental policies under the administration of President-elect Donald Trump.
The average temperature in Boston during November from 1991 to 2020 was 51.9 degrees Fahrenheit. This year, temperatures spiked to 79 degrees on Nov. 1 and 82 degrees on Nov. 6.
Hessann Farooqi, executive director of the Boston Climate Action Network, said climate change affects “longer-term weather patterns” and causes extreme cold and hot spells worldwide, which pose “critical challenges” to human health.
“Extreme heat means more vulnerability to heat stroke, particularly for our seniors and other vulnerable residents,” Farooqi said. “It’s the people who have the least social, political and economic power who are the ones hit first and worst by the effect of climate change.”
The winter may also be impacted after the warmer fall temperatures, said Jessica Spaccio, a climatologist at the Northeast Regional Climate Center.
“That means less snowfall during our winter time, which has an effect on water supply in the spring [and] has an effect on winter recreation,” Spaccio said.
As Boston grapples with these immediate climate changes, President-elect Donald Trump’s prospective environmental changes have signaled a shift in federal climate policies.
Farooqi said Trump’s recent election win will be “extremely harmful” to the climate, both nationally and globally.
“We have had such great progress in the last several years under the Biden and Harris administration on not just reducing emissions, but also meaningfully empowering communities that are so often the ones hit first and worst by this crisis,” Farooqi said.
Trump plans to roll back the President Joe Biden administration’s climate policies under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, a law addressing climate change through tax incentives and funding. He also plans to withdraw the U.S. from the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, a legally-binding, international treaty aimed at limiting global warming.
Locally, the City of Boston is pressing forward with initiatives to build climate resiliency, said Liz Breadon, city councilor for Boston’s Allston-Brighton District 9.
“They’re looking at developing floodable parks and increasing stormwater infrastructure to be able to absorb and handle increased rainfall,” Breadon said.
The City created a climate action plan in 2014 that was updated in 2019 with actions to get Boston on track to become carbon-neutral by 2050.
Breadon said it will be “difficult to predict” how Trump’s plans might affect Boston’s climate resiliency efforts.
Spaccio said the NRCC is still “hopeful” they can continue working to “mitigate the effects of climate change.”
Farooqi said the BCAN has been in conversation with partners at both city and state levels to discuss a collective response to a second Trump presidency.
“All of that work needs to continue. We’re certainly not going to stop,” Farooqi said. “We’ve been planning for this, and we have an understanding of what we can do, but it’s really going to take a lot of work and a lot of partnership.”
