North Carolina environmental advocates are worried about the flurry of executive orders that President Donald Trump signed within hours of returning to the White House this week.

The mandates include removing the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement — a move that reprises an action from Trump’s first term — and declaring a “national energy emergency.“

The initial U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement — a landmark international pact that aims to limit global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius — lasted only four months. Although Trump declared his intentions in 2017, the formalities didn’t occur until late 2020. The U.S. reentered the accord during the Biden administration in 2021.

During that brief period, however, the withdrawal harmed international climate diplomacy and tarred the U.S.’s reputation on the world stage, TIME reported.

Advocates voiced concerns about the latest action and its consequences for North Carolina and the U.S., as well as the global implications.

“That puts us up there with countries like Libya and Iran, that have not joined the Paris Accords, and that’s usually a list that we don’t want to be part of,” North Carolina League of Conservation Voters governmental relations director Dan Crawford said. “The United States has led by example, and that’s not going to happen anymore.”

Some environmental advocates are questioning the legality of Trump’s actions — whether he’s able to take such drastic measures on the environmental front.

Even so, there’s worry over the impacts.

“Though the legal ground he stands upon is shaky, the damage this administration could do to our environment and our children’s future over the next four years is unspeakable,” Erin Carey, the North Carolina Sierra Club’s state conservation policy director, said in a statement. “For those of us who value clean air, clean water, and a livable planet for future generations, Monday, Jan. 20, was a dark and frightening moment.”

Trump’s other environment-oriented executive orders target, among other things, deemphasizing the development of electric vehicles and encouraging fossil fuel drilling, freezing environmental protections rules, and seeking to prohibit offshore wind projects.

He’s also reversed a series of orders adopted by the Biden administration that incorporated environmental justice into federal policymaking — measures that were lauded by advocates in the environmental community.

“Trump’s executive orders read like an industry fever dream: no protections, no limits, no rules,” Carey said.

Climate issues are taking center stage in North Carolina after Hurricane Helene wreaked catastrophic damage in western North Carolina at the end of last September.

Recovery efforts are still underway, with natural disaster aid and oversight as top priorities for the state legislature’s 2025 session.

Extreme weather events associated with climate change and their destructive impacts have occurred in other portions of the country in recent weeks including drought- and wind-driven fires in Southern California and the ongoing record cold in parts of the southern U.S.

“We need to be the leaders on clean energy. We need to be the leaders facing climate change,” Crawford said. “Scientists have warned and warned and warned us that we need to do something.”

Trump is scheduled to visit the hurricane-damaged western portion of the state on Friday. Specific details around the trip have not been released as of Thursday midday, but Buncombe County officials warned of “significant traffic impacts” to the Asheville area, according to the Asheville Citizen Times.

Jen Duggan, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project, said the executive orders will “expose Americans to more dangerous air and water pollution and fuel climate catastrophes.”

From an economic standpoint, the mandates benefit large corporations while hurting individuals, she added.

“While these orders do nothing to address voter concerns about cost-of-living affordability, they will increase already astronomical profits for fossil fuel companies at the expense of everyday Americans,” Duggan said.