President Trump: climate policy catastrophe or a new path?
As featured in an exclusive with Energy Voice 08/11/2024: President Trump: climate policy catastrophe or a new path?
President Trump’s victory, and the expectation that he will pull the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement, will hang over COP29 when it begins next week. But there is still a clear path to tackle climate change that runs through a second Trump administration.
In his impromptu victory speech, President Trump promised to fight for Americans to build a stronger economy, praised Elon Musk’s prowess at innovation, acknowledged the tragedy of Hurricane Helen, and celebrated America’s bounty of domestic oil and gas. While many will read climate catastrophe into the final point, the future path to address climate change hinges on all four of these points.
President Trump, like President Biden before him, is strongly committed to growing American manufacturing and can be expected to pursue an active industrial policy to achieve this. Research from the IMF shows that green jobs demand a wage premium relative to polluting jobs, and are less vulnerable to automation. According to data firm Lightcast, green job openings have increased more than 50% since 2019, and fortunately nearly ¾ of those in polluting jobs can easily commute to a centre of green jobs. Government support for green manufacturing has driven an industrial renaissance in Republican states. This has helped to make South Carolina, whose Governor was the first to endorse President Trump, the fastest growing state in the nation. While President Trump has promised to repeal many of the tax credits and subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act, he is expected to double down on support for American clean manufacturing, especially given his commitment to replacing foreign imports with American production.
Bringing down inflation was a key pillar of President Trump’s victory, and energy innovation is one area where domestic production could reduce inflation. The US economy is growing rapidly and with that growth comes great demand for energy, particularly electricity. Renewables are the cheapest way to meet this demand. Historically, integrating renewables into the electricity system has been difficult, but new innovations in grid stability and demand flexibility now enable renewables to truly deliver the cheapest energy to power economic growth. By doubling down on energy innovation, this Trump administration could see renewables and electric vehicles genuinely reduce inflation.
Reducing emissions is no longer sufficient to address climate change, we must also adapt to a changing climate. The EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service recently warned that this year, global temperatures will likely be more than 1.5C higher than before the industrial revolution, breeching the totemic threshold of the Paris Agreement. President Trump has promised to rebuild the homes destroyed by Hurricane Helene, but the veteran real estate developer surely knows better than most, the futility of building in a flood plain. President Trump has an opportunity to show the rural voters, who overwhelming swung in his favour, that the new administration is committed to their communities, while also building the infrastructure to protect against future natural disasters and climate change impacts.
Finally, what of President Trump’s embrace of domestic oil and gas production? Even in the most aggressive energy transition scenarios, oil and gas will remain in the energy mix for the foreseeable future. The IEA expects that the share of the share of oil and gas coming from OPEC to rise, as total oil consumption falls. Stricter environmental standards mean that the carbon intensity of oil and gas production and the likelihood of leakages of methane, which has a much greater impact on global warming than CO2, are much lower in the United States than in many other countries. While we ultimately must shift to carbon-free energy, as long as oil and gas are still being used, it will be better for both the climate and our energy security if they are produced in the United States.
This Trump Administration could be the last nail in the coffin for the COP process, that has continued to fail on its promises, but it does not need to mark the end of action on climate change. Rather, it could be a decisive pivot to a new approach that combines clean manufacturing, energy innovation, climate adaptation, and a responsible, low-emission sunset for oil and gas production. This may not be the solution to climate change for which many campaigners and policymakers have strived, but it’s certainly one worth having.
