Since taking office, Donald Trump has fulfilled all expectations that he would do everything in his power to bolster the oil and gas industry and obstruct efforts to reduce planet-warming pollution.
The bad news was not slow in coming: he invented a “national energy emergency” to crank up U.S. fossil fuel production, already the highest in the world; pulled the United States out of the Paris Agreement; blocked new offshore wind; froze some funding for the Inflation Reduction Act; and eliminated support – real or imagined – for electric vehicles.
But there’s a bigger picture to Trump’s presidency, and more progress on climate mitigation and adaptation than he can hope to obstruct. The next four years will hurt the United States’ competitiveness in the global energy transition, but here are six reasons why the green shift won't be stopped.
1. Clean energy investments keep surging past fossil fuels
Despite worries that clean energy deployment was faltering, solar and EVs are surging around the globe, led by gangbusters growth in China. The International Energy Agency says that “the world now invests almost twice as much in clean energy as it does in fossil fuels,” hitting US$2 trillion. As two climate-risk profs from Australia put it, “This is a historic mega-trend and will continue with or without American leadership.”
2. Trump’s ‘drill, baby, drill’ approach is a double-edged sword
As The New York Times points out, the U.S. president may have promised to “make it easier to build energy infrastructure and secure drilling leases. But higher production could hurt prices and profits.” Trump’s push to lower the price of oil doesn’t just eat into oil company profits; it makes it less likely that oil companies will want to pony up to extract expensive bitumen in regions like Alberta’s oil sands.
3. Biden’s green-economy agenda will keep giving
Republicans may have tried to block the Inflation Reduction Act when they were in opposition, but with 85% of IRA financing in red districts, word on Capitol Hill is that Trump won’t have enough support to repeal Biden’s legacy bill. Either way, Biden already awarded more than US$100 billion to climate projects and the impact of those investments will come to fruition after he’s gone, as battery factories and charging stations, et cetera, come online.
4. Cities and states will once again lead on climate
It’s happened before, it will happen again. States and cities step into leadership roles on climate when hostile governments take over. California, the world’s fifth-largest economy, is already fixing to fight Trump on environmental rollbacks, and the red state of Texas just so happens to have more wind and solar power at the utility level than any other state. In fact, 50% of states, plus D.C., have renewable-energy requirements in place.
5. More companies than ever have science-based targets
Yes, some high-profile corporations such as Amazon, Walmart and Microsoft recently scaled back some commitments made to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), the framework set up to help companies reduce emissions by 42% by 2030, as they struggle to lower emissions. But by the end of 2023, four Georgia Tech profs note, “7,929 companies representing 39% of global market capitalization had committed to set targets, and 4,205 had targets already validated by SBTi.” The number with strong 2030 targets has since grown to 7,171.
6. More investors want real data on climate risks
Last year, the Securities and Exchange Commission responded to demand from investors by requiring public companies to disclose their exposure to climate risks. Whatever their perspective on decarbonization, investors want accurate forecasts of the financial impacts of climate change. The rule is being challenged and Trump could rescind it, but he’d be going against Wall Street’s wishes.
