Trump’s victory promises to shake up US energy and climate policy, analysts and activists say

During victory speech early Wednesday morningDonald Trump has boasted about the country’s vast oil and natural gas reserves.

“We have more liquid gold than any country in the world. Bigger than Saudi Arabia. We have more than Russia. Bobby, stay away from liquid gold,” Trump told Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a former environmental lawyer and presidential candidate who can play a role in shaping health policy in the next Trump administration.

Trump’s goal in a second term will be to increase fossil fuel production, his campaign said. But he will enter the White House after will almost certainly be the hottest year on record in 2024. Emissions of greenhouse gases, which trap heat and mostly come from burning fossil fuels, have reached record high last year. And global temperatures are on track to rise to levels that scientists say will increase the risk of much more dangerous climate impacts, from more destructive storms and heat waves to rising sea levels that could inundate coastal cities.

Trump, however, has long questioned the scientific consensus that the Earth is getting hotter primarily due to man-made emissions. In recent months, Trump has railed against wind turbines and electric vehicles, which experts say will help curb climate pollution. threatened to return unspent climate finance.

However, a second Trump administration will not be able to stop the country’s transition to cleaner energy sources, analysts and activists say. The cost of many of these technologies is falling rapidly. Companies are under pressure from their customers and investors to act on climate change. And states led by both Democrats and Republicans reap economic benefits from new factories and power plants that received government support.

“It’s not that our jobs haven’t gotten harder” since Trump’s re-election, said Mindy Lubber, executive director of Ceres, a nonprofit that advocates for clean energy. “But there is a legitimate vein of opportunism, entrepreneurial spirit, new jobs, new economics, business people, entrepreneurs, business school leaders who are saying, ‘We need to fight climate change because of the financial risks.’ , material risk and, of course, human risk.”

Other human rights groups supported Lubber.

“There’s no denying that another Trump presidency will set back the nation’s efforts to address the climate crisis and protect the environment, but most U.S. state, local and private sector leaders are committed to moving forward,” Dan Lashoff, director of the U.S. World Resources Administration. Institute,” it said. “And you can count on a chorus of world leaders reaffirming that they will not turn their backs on climate and nature goals.”

Jason Grumet, executive director of a trade group called the American Clean Energy Association, noted that there was a lot of investment and growth in the wind and solar industries during Trump’s first term.

“Private sector investment in clean energy is creating jobs and economic opportunity for small towns and rural communities across the country, while hundreds of new plants have come online in states where too many good jobs have been moved overseas,” it says. Grumet’s statement. He said the industry is “ready to work with the Trump-Vance administration and the new Congress to continue this great American success story.”

However, Lubber cautioned that while companies may not abandon their climate initiatives, they may be reluctant to advertise them.

And this can have consequences.

“Leading companies often help companies that aren’t as far along in their thinking understand why something is worth doing,” Rich Lesser, global chairman of Boston Consulting Group, told NPR before the election. “If leading companies act responsibly in a way that benefits them, but they don’t feel they can talk about it, we won’t be able to help the wider range of companies understand why they should embrace it too.

Proposals from some Trump alliesincluding former administration officials, pose other risks to climate action. Some have called for eliminating federal programs aimed at combating climate change and repealing laws backed by the Biden administration that provide billions of dollars in funding and tax breaks for corporations and communities to reduce emissions and prepare for the risks they face in a hotter world.

For example, conservative activists were seek the liquidation of the Office of Credit Programs at the Ministry of Energy. The office, which Trump tried to defund during his first term, helps fund innovative projects that could help cut emissions.

Without such public investment in innovation, the United States will have a hard time making significant cuts in climate pollution or competing with China and other countries that seek to dominate new technologies, said Tanya Das, who focuses on energy innovation at Bipartisan Policy. Center.

And there is growing concern among climate scientists political interference in Trump’s second term. One conservative proposal called Project 2025calls for eliminating the Environmental Protection Agency office tasked with reducing pollution in minority communities, cutting back on monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change and getting rid of the government’s main agency that conducts atmospheric research.

Project 2025 also describes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which includes the National Weather Service and offices that support fisheries and monitor air quality, as “a colossal operation that has become one of the major drivers of the climate change alarm industry.” I suggest gutting it.

Trump distanced himself from the 2025 projectbut dozens of his writers and architects worked in his administration. And the plan’s vision for climate and energy policy matches that of the former president.

Trump is also expected to change the way the US participates in global efforts to combat climate change. During his first term, Trump pulled the US out of the Paris climate agreementwhich requires virtually every country on Earth to commit to reducing planet-warming pollution. Right now, world leaders are discussing how to provide more climate finance to developing countries, which bear little responsibility for global warming but suffer disproportionately from its effects.

“I think it’s a concern if we pull back (from international efforts to combat climate change) or don’t live up to the commitments that we’ve made or become less interested in these kinds of issues because these are issues that need to be addressed.” decide globally. ” Vijaya Ramachandran, director of energy and development at The Breakthrough Institute, a research and advocacy group, told NPR before the election.

The American Petroleum Institute (API), representing the US oil and gas industry, says the statement that voters chose Trump in part because of his energy policies. “Energy was on the ballot, and voters sent a clear signal that they want choices, not mandates, and an all-of-the-above approach that leverages our nation’s resources and builds on the successes of his first term,” CEO API Director Mike Sommers said.

Despite the Biden administration’s commitment to limiting climate change, it led record oil production.

U.S. oil and gas production is influenced by global prices, with companies drilling more when prices are high and less when prices are low. US presidents have very little influence over these corporate decisions and, ultimately, fuel prices.

Copyright: NPR 2024