Surviving Trump: former US climate chief says fightback is under way

Gina McCarthy is part of an alliance of governors and mayors committed to climate action

Fri Nov 13 2026 - 17:10 • 4 MIN READ

Amid the ear-busting noise of a Cop31 venue thronged with 90,000 attendees, Gina McCarthy teased the group circled around her for not making even more.

“That’s better,” she said, as they cheered louder. “Be excited. Be hopeful.”

Go back to 2016 and McCarthy was far from excited and hopeful.

The Bostonian of an Irish father and Irish-British mother was head of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and Donald Trump had won his first presidential election.

He would replace her with a succession of men who systematically dismantled environmental regulations and earn the EPA the nickname the Oil Protection Agency.

“I have to admit it was very difficult,” she said.

She later became climate adviser to Joe Biden and clawed back some the ground lost but with the second Trump term the attack on environmental and climate policy escalated.

But McCarthy, now 72, didn’t stay down for long. She joined America is All In, a coalition of US governors and mayors who remained committed to climate action, and began to fight back.

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McCarthy is at Cop31 in Antalya, Turkey, with the All-Ins, telling their stories of surviving Trump, personally and policy-wise, and declaring that, whatever happens in the White House, they will not abandon the climate crisis.

“We understood the threat that was being posed to us and our country and we wanted to be part of solving that,” she said in an interview after one of her presentations.

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The All-Ins include 24 state governors, 170 mayors and other senior elected city officials.

They work to boost clean energy, energy-efficient building standards and electric vehicles within their own jurisdictions using whatever state and local powers and tax incentives they have.

More are expected to join after the recent US midterm elections that saw Democrats rout Republicans.

It wasn’t just a blue wave but a green wave, McCarthy said.

“I’m excited about the recent election. I can’t help but be excited. It’s simply a landslide.

“It’s a landslide that tells us that young people are standing up. We have communities all across the United States that are standing up and telling us that now is the time for us to take a transition away from our reliance on fossil fuels.

“This is not going to be a 72-year-old woman yapping about this stuff, it’s going to be about what this next generation can do.”

Some new Democrat seat holders are pragmatic when it comes to energy, however, pledging to continue backing fossil fuels as well as renewables.

McCarthy doesn’t judge them harshly. “You cannot simply shut off fossil fuels and invest in clean energy. I wish we could, but there is a transition period,” she said.

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For the same reason, she is careful about opining on the Irish Government’s plans to develop new fossil fuel infrastructure by building the country’s first liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal to import LNG from the US to her father’s native Clare.

“I can’t really make those kind of judgments for another country,” she said. Certainly not when coming from one like the US with the way it has behaved, she added.

“I have to be a little bit demure on this issue but there’s always going to be challenges and decisions like that.

“At some point in time I guess it’s my naive hope that we won’t have to rely on fossil fuels period, so the more we invest in fossil, the more difficult it might become for that transition.”

Coming to Cop31 wasn’t just about flying the flag for the All – but about building international alliances, she said.

“We are trying to break out of the boundaries of what the US is and isn’t doing and recognise that we are part of a much larger world,” she said.

“Climate is the quintessential example of needing to be international.

“I want people in other countries to know that we’re going to be trying as hard as humanly possible in our country to stand up for them, not just for us.”

After the jubilation of the midterm results, there remain hard realities to face.

US emissions are rising and Trump has two years left in the White House.

“I do not underestimate the intention of our current president to actually do everything possible to advance fossil fuels if he sees it in his best interest,” she said.

“He’ll do whatever he thinks he can.”

That includes, she feared, meddling in European affairs and continuing his relentless tariff games and lobbying for deregulation of trade, finance and corporate affairs.

But she is already preparing for the post-Trump era, and is in a network of experts working on a plan to restore and improve the EPA when the time comes.

“We’re not waiting in the wings. We know that this administration is no longer going to be in power for too long.”

When that time comes, she plans to celebrate.

“I think I would mark it with a very big champagne celebration, though more likely a beer celebration.

“I will have a very big Guinness.”

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