Udall

“Trump is assembling a palace of the most loyal guards,” said Michael Sozan, a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress, who worked for years in the Senate — including as chief of staff to former Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado — and has written extensively about the checks and balances in American government.

Brad Udall, a climate scientist at Colorado State University, said that “at best, Trump’s win means a four-year hiatus on US domestic and international leadership on greenhouse gas reduction efforts. ... Unfortunately, the impacts are likely to last much longer than just four years given the way long-term investments and planning work in the energy sector.”

The latest study is thorough and adds to previous research documenting how human-caused warming is driving what scientists describe as hot drought and aridification in the West, said Brad Udall, a climate scientist at Colorado State University.

“They found, just like all these other studies, that higher temperatures have been, and are going to be, a cause of more severe droughts as it warms in the 21st century,” Udall said.

Udall said Trump’s win will likely mean rolling back the Biden administration’s historic climate initiatives and imposing a four-year hiatus on U.S. efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions domestically and abroad.