In a White House ceremony on 11 February 2026, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, was nominated “Champion of Coal” and described by a White House article as the “undisputed champion of beautiful clean coal”. During the event this enemy of truth and reason signed an executive order directing the defense department to secure long-term power purchase agreements with coal plants for military installations and other “mission-critical facilities”.

A day later, Simon Stiell, the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, said during a press conference that climate extremes are fuelling famine, displacement and war. “We find ourselves in a new world disorder…Let’s get real: for any leader who is serious about security, climate action is mission critical, as climate impacts wreak havoc on every population and every economy,” he said.

But Trump considers himself totally secure and above all that climate change nonsense. Becoming Champion of Coal is just the most recent part of Trump’s anti-environment push, which has seen him roll back pollution rules and boost oil and gas. As he told the UN General Assembly, he believes that climate change is the “greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world, in my opinion”.

However, US climate leaders don’t agree. They named Trump’s latest effort to revive the US coal industry as an act of corruption. The Guardian reported that while he was on the campaign trail, Trump was said to have requested $1bn from oil bosses, promising he would scrap environmental rules if elected. Which promise he is now fulfilling.

The United States is one of the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters. The World Resource Institute says that regulating those emissions is critical to slow climate change and protect Americans from deadly air pollution.

But on the day following the Champion of Coal’s nomination, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized a rule overturning its own “endangerment finding” — established after years of scientific analysis — which concluded that greenhouse gas pollution endangers human health and requires regulation. The EPA also repealed emissions standards for light-, medium- and heavy-duty vehicles.

The endangerment finding stated that the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere endangered public health and welfare. Since 2009 it has allowed the EPA to limit heat-trapping pollution from vehicles, power plants and other industrial sources. Without it, regulating greenhouse gas emissions will be much harder.

And the Champion of Coal and of World Disorder will be much happier.