Donald Trump is likely to face unprecedented opposition from environmental groups during his presidency as activists prepare to battle the new administration on a number of fronts across the US.

While environmentalists clashed with Barack Obama over the Keystone and Dakota Access oil pipelines, these fights could pale in comparison to the array of grievances Trump will face over water security, fracking and climate change.

The president-elect has vowed to approve the Keystone pipeline, which Obama blocked, and “very quickly” resolve the Dakota Access project, currently held up by the federal government after months of protests by Native Americans. Trump has pledged to remove “roadblocks” to oil, gas and coal developments and threatened to end all climate and clean energy spending.

Opposition to this agenda has already begun in earnest, following a prediction by former vice-president Al Gore that there will be a “huge upsurge” in environmental activism, stoked by the new administration’s plans to cut science funding, remove the US from the Paris climate deal and appoint Scott Pruitt as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency – an agency he has sued multiple times as Oklahoma attorney general.

350.org, an international environmental organization, pledged to make January a month of a resistance against Trump’s cabinet picks. On 9 January, the organization will mobilize its chapters in all 50 states to stage protests at senators’ district offices. It will be the beginning of what they say will be a sustained protest throughout the year.

In New York City in December, the Sierra Club protested Pruitt’s nomination by projecting an image of rising seas and the words “Don’t Trump the planet” on to the side of the Trump Building on Wall Street. It’s the opening salvo of what is likely to be a war of attrition waged by America’s largest environmental group, which has drawn in more monthly donors in the weeks since Trump’s election than it has in the past four years.

“If Trump keeps choosing to drag us backwards to the dirty energy of the past, he will find unfettered opposition every step of the way,” said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club.

Here are some of the flashpoints for environmental activists protesting issues relating to climate change happening around the country now and likely to erupt in the first few months of Trump’s presidency:

Eminent domain in Iowa

South of Standing Rock, the sprawling Dakota Access pipeline faces another dispute. Landowners in Iowa are challenging the government seizure of their land to build the pipeline.

The pipeline is almost 90% complete in Iowa and will eventually run through 200 parcels of private land granted to Energy Transfer Partners, the Texas-based company building the Dakota Access pipeline. But 17 of those parcel owners are suing the Iowa utilities board (IUB), arguing that the pipeline should be dug up and removed because the government violated the law in its use of eminent domain, which is the power the government has to seize private land for public use.

Bill Hanagan, the lawyer representing the plaintiffs in the case, explained that an Iowa law passed in 2006 prevents the state from using eminent domain to grant farmland to a private company if it is not in the public good. Energy Transfer Partners argues that the state will reap significant financial benefits, and the approval of the IUB is all that is required.

A judge heard the arguments for the eminent domain lawsuit on 15 December and will probably issue a decision in the coming weeks. But regardless of what he decides, the losing side is expected to appeal and protests are expected to continue. Environmentalists and some from the Meskwaki tribe held protests, conducted a hunger strike, and faced 200 arrests, according to Edward Fallon, a former state lawmaker and lead climate advocate

Hanagan predicts the legal dispute may ultimately be settled in the US supreme court.



Divestment movement on campus

Campuses across the country have been pushing universities to divest from from the fossil fuel industry over the past few years. Organizers are hoping the environmental threats posed by Trump’s cabinet nominations of energy industry leaders will further galvanize the movement.

The divestment movement calls on a range of different holding funds – including public pensions and university endowments – to sell off their investments in fossil fuel companies. According to a report by Arabella Advisors, holding funds controlling more than $5tn have joined the divestment movement.

“I see a choice: to give up and give into fear or transform that into the hope and anger that we will need to fuel this movement,” said Greta Neubauer, director of Fossil Fuel Divestment Student Network. She said there was a “growing moral consensus that investing in the fossil fuel industry is unacceptable”. Neubauer and others are fearful of the prospect of having a climate denier in the White House and the damage that could be wrought by cabinet appointments such as those of former Exxon chairman Rex Tillerson for secretary of state and Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency, which he has rallied against throughout his career, including as attorney general of Oklahoma.

American students protest outside the UN climate talks in reaction to Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election. Photograph: Fadel Senna/AFP/Getty Images

She said students were planning to walk out of classes on the the Monday following Trump’s inauguration to “reject his climate denial”.



“There is no room for neutrality in the face of the administration that is threatening the very future of life on this planet,” Neubauer said.

Olivia Rich, the spokeswoman for New York University’s divest campaign, said fossil fuels were not a tenable long-term investment.

“The reason why is either the fossil fuel industry continues to do really well, and then the entire economy tanks because we end up with a catastrophe of monumental proportions, or the fossil fuel industry stops doing well because there’s climate action,” Rich said.

Pipelines across the US

It’s not just Dakota Access and Keystone XL. Environmental reform leaders say resistance is escalating to numerous proposed oil and gas pipelines around the country.

“I think there is a growing opposition to the buildout of gas pipelines and the opposition crosses party lines,” said Kelly Martin, deputy director of the Beyond Dirty Fuels campaign for the Sierra Club. “The concerns range from impacts on our land and water and private property to impacts on the climate.”

Martin points to opposition to the Sabal Trail Transmission,which would stretch approximately 515 miles through Alabama, Georgia and Florida, as emblematic of future resistance.

Activists have been protesting the pipeline since construction began last fall, with 16 people arrested in total and rallies held in five cities across Florida on 29 December.

Protesters in California march against the Dakota Access pipeline. Photograph: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images

In several spots along the route near where construction is planned, protesters have set up encampments.

Debra Johnson, 58, said she helped to found a camp that has been running since late September. She called the camp, in Live Oak, Florida, a “refuge” and a “unity camp” where people gather then head to demonstrations, such as a sit-in planned for later this month in Suwannee river state park. About 35 people are currently staying there, she said, though the number varies.

Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson, a campaign organizer with the Sierra Club in Florida, said she had been fielding calls about how people can donate to two camps established along the Suwannee and Santa Fe rivers. She said said the pipeline poses a range of environmental concerns, including endangering the local groundwater supply and the risk of sinkholes.

Martin said there are also major environmental justice concerns that the locations of compressor stations, which she said affected air quality, would have a disproportionate impact on African American communities.

Malwitz-Jipson has been encouraging people to document construction violations and reach out to lawmakers. The project also faces legal challenges, including by the Sierra Club.



Sabal Trail, a joint venture of Spectra Energy Corp, NextEra Energy and Duke Energy, according to a website for the pipeline, is slated to become operational in the fall.

In an email, Andrea Grover, the director of stakeholder outreach with the Sabal Trail Transmission, wrote: “Sabal Trail believes that this project, as authorized by the federal and state agencies, is a balanced plan for the route, construction techniques, and the approved measures to avoid, minimize or mitigate impacts.” She cited a company newsletter entitled “Common Misconceptions” and recently penned an op-ed on the subject in the Tallahassee Democrat.

Other pipeline projects eliciting opposition include the Atlantic Coast pipeline, which would travel from West Virginia to North Carolina; the Bayou Bridge pipeline in Louisiana; and the Mountain Valley pipeline, which would travel through West Virginia and Virginia.