When they list measures that are making the most difference, it lines up with policies Trump has said he’ll target.

These rollbacks will come as more lives are being lost in heat waves, record amounts of climate pollution are accumulating in the atmosphere, the United States has been hit with what may be two of its most expensive hurricanes, and nations, which will meet in Baku, Azerbaijan next week for climate negotiations, have failed to take strong action to change these realities.

Here are some of the measures.

The Inflation Reduction Act, the nation’s landmark climate law

This law is significant because it is expected to reduce U.S. emissions by about 40% by 2030, if it unfolds as planned in the coming years.

It funnels money to measures that substitute clean energy for dirty. One major way it does so is by giving credits to businessespeople who build new solar and wind farms.

But it’s not limited to that. It encourages developers of geothermal energy and businesses that separate the carbon dioxide from their smokestacks and bury it underground. It incentivizes the next generation of nuclear power. It gives a $7,500 tax credit to people who buy electric cars. People who buy their cars used can get a credit too, as long as they don’t earn too much to qualify.

Trump, by contrast, has summed up his energy policy as “drill, baby, drill” and pledged to dismantle what he calls Democrats’ “green new scam” in favor of boosting production of fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas and coal, the main causes of climate change.

He vows to end subsidies for wind power that were included in the landmark 2022 climate law.

If Trump does target the climate law, there are provisions that are likely safe. One is a credit for companies in advanced manufacturing, because it is perceived as “America first and pro-U.S. business,” said David Shepheard, partner and energy expert at the global consultant Baringa. Incentives for electric vehicles are likely most at risk, he added.

In a call Wednesday morning, Scott Segal, head of a communications group at the law firm Bracewell LLP, which represents the energy industry, said the climate law is not likely to be repealed.

Dan Jasper, a senior policy advisor at Project Drawdown, said repealing parts of the climate law could backfire because most of the investments and jobs are in Republican congressional districts.

Pollution from electric power plants

The main U.S. rule aimed at reducing the climate change that comes from making electricity at power plants that burn coal is also considered vulnerable. This rule from the Environmental Protection Agency, announced in April, would force many coal-fired plants to capture 90% of their carbon emissions or shut down within eight years, Shepheard said.

It was projected to reduce roughly 1.38 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide through 2047, along with tens of thousands of tons of other harmful air pollutants.

Industry groups and Republican-controlled states have filed legal challenges to a host of EPA rules including this one and Trump’s victory means the Justice Department is unlikely to defend it.

Under a Trump presidency, it is unlikely to survive, Shepheard said.

The United States has been reducing carbon dioxide emissions primarily by replacing coal-fired power plants with clean, renewable power, said Stanford University climate scientist Rob Jackson, who chairs the Global Carbon Project, a group of scientists that tracks countries’ carbon dioxide emissions.

“I hope that we don’t lose sight of the benefits of clean energy,” he said. “It’s not just about the climate. It’s about our lives and our health.”

Limiting leaks from damaging methane, or natural gas

The Biden administration was under pressure to reduce one of the main pollutants contributing to drought, heat waves, flooding and stronger hurricanes — methane or natural gas. It leaks out of oil and gas equipment, sometimes deliberately when companies consider it too expensive to transport.

The Biden administration issued the first national rules on this.

Industry groups and Republican-leaning states have challenged the rule in court. They say the Environmental Protection Agency overstepped its authority and set unattainable standards.

The EPA said the rules are squarely within its legal responsibilities and would protect the public.

Fuel-efficient vehicles

The Environmental Protection Agency has issued its strongest rules on tailpipe emissions from cars and trucks under the Biden administration.

While it is unclear who will head the EPA under Trump, the agency is considered likely to begin a lengthy process to repeal and replace a host of standards including the one on tailpipe emissions, which Trump falsely calls an electric vehicle “mandate.″ Trump rolled back more than 100 environmental laws as president and that number is likely to grow in a second term.

Trump has said EV manufacturing will destroy jobs in the auto industry and has falsely claimed that battery-powered cars don’t work in cold weather and aren’t able to travel long distances. Trump softened his rhetoric in recent months after Tesla CEO Elon Musk endorsed him and campaigned heavily for his election.

Even so, industry officials expect Trump to try to slow a shift to electric cars.

Drilling in Alaska refuge

Trump is almost certain to reinstate oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, continuing a partisan battle that has persisted for decades. Biden and other Democratic presidents have blocked drilling in the sprawling refuge, which is home to polar bears, caribou and other wildlife. Trump opened the area to drilling in a 2017 tax cut law enacted by congressional Republicans. No drilling has occurred in the refuge, although the U.S. Bureau of Land Management on Wednesday proposed a lease sale by the end of December that could lead to oil drilling. The sale is required under the 2017 law.

Transition to cleaner energy, transport will continue

Trump, who has cast climate change as a “hoax,” has said he will also eliminate regulations by the Biden administration to increase the energy efficiency of lightbulbs, stoves, dishwashers and shower heads.

Dan Jasper, a senior policy advisor at Project Drawdown said climate action will continue to move forward at the state and local level.

Zara Ahmed, who leads policy analysis and science strategy at Carbon Direct, agreed. While there may be an abdication of leadership at the federal level on climate, she’s optimistic that states including California will continue to lead.

Clean Air Task Force Executive Director Armond Cohen said on Wednesday that states, cities, utilities and businesses that have committed to net zero emissions will keep working toward those goals, driving record installations of wind and solar energy.

Governors of both parties are also interested in ramping up nuclear energy as a carbon-free source of electricity, Cohen said.

Trump has said he, too, is interested in developing the next generation of nuclear reactors that are smaller than traditional reactors.

Gina McCarthy, a former EPA administrator who was Biden’s first national climate adviser, said Trump will be unable to stop clean energy such as wind, solar and geothermal power.

“No matter what Trump may say, the shift to clean energy is unstoppable and our country is not turning back,″ McCarthy said. Advocates for clean energy are bipartisan, well-organized “and fully prepared to deliver climate solutions, boost local economies, and drive climate ambition,′ she said.

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California claims to know how much climate-warming gas is going into the air from within its borders. It’s the law: California limits climate pollution and each year the limits get stricter.

The state has also been a major oil and gas producer for more than a century, and authorities are well aware some 35,000 old, inactive oil and gas wells perforate the landscape.

Yet officials with the agency responsible for regulating greenhouse gas emissions say they don’t include methane that leaks from these idle wells in their inventory of the state’s emissions.

Ira Leifer, a University of California Santa Barbara scientist said the lack of data on emissions pouring or seeping out of idle wells calls into question the state’s ability to meet its ambitious goal to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045.

Residents and environmentalists from across the state have been voicing concern about the possibility of leaking idle or abandoned wells for years, but the concerns were heightened in May and June when 21 idle wells were discovered to be leaking methane in or near two Bakersfield neighborhoods. They say that the leaking wells are “an urgent public health issue,” because when a well is leaking methane, other gases often escape too.

Leifer said these “ridealong” gases were his biggest concern with the wells.

“Those other gases have significant health impacts,” Leifer said, yet we know even less about their quantities than we do about the methane.

In July, residents who live in the communities nearest the leaking wells protested at the California Geologic Management Division’s field offices, calling for better oversight.

“It’s clear that they are willing to ignore this public health emergency. Our communities are done waiting. CalGEM needs to do their job,” Cesar Aguirre, a community organizer with the Central California Environmental Justice Network, said in a statement.

Robert Howarth, a Cornell University methane researcher, agreed with Leifer that the amount of methane emissions from leaking wells isn’t well known and that it’s not a major source of emissions when compared with methane emissions from across the oil and gas industry.

Still, he said, “it’s adding something very clearly, and we shouldn’t be allowing it to happen.”

A ton of methane is 83 times worse for the climate than a ton of carbon dioxide, when compared over twenty years.

A 2020 study said emissions from idle wells are “more substantial” than from plugged wells in California, but recommended more data collection on inactive wells at the major oil and gas fields throughout the state.

Robert Jackson, a Stanford University climate scientist and co-author on that study, said they found high emissions from some of the idle wells they measured in the study.

In order to get a better idea of how much methane is leaking, the state of California is investing in projects on the ground and in the air. David Clegern, a spokesperson for CARB, said the agency is beginning a project to measure emissions from a sample of properly and improperly abandoned wells to estimate statewide emissions from them.

And in June, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a budget that includes participation in a global effort to slash emissions called the Methane Accountability Project. The state will spend $100 million to use satellites to track large methane leaks in order to help the state identify sources of the gas and cap leaks.

Some research has already been done, too, to find out how much methane is coming from oil and gas facilities. A 2019 Nature study found that 26% of state methane emissions is coming from oil and gas. A new investigation by the Associated Press found methane is billowing from oil and gas equipment in the Permian Basin in Texas and companies under report it.

Howarth said even if methane from idle oil and gas wells isn’t a major pollution source, it should be a priority not just in California, but nationwide, to help the country meet its climate pledges.

“Methane dissipates pretty quickly in the atmosphere,” he said, “so cutting the emissions is really one of the simplest ways we have to slow the rate of global warming and meet that Paris target.”

A new Senate proposal would provide hundreds of millions dollars to plug wells and reduce pollution from them, especially in hard hit communities.

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