Does Trump’s reelection spell the end of the road on climate action?
COP29 opens in Azerbaijan as Donald Trump’s return raises fresh concerns about the United States climate backsliding, echoing his withdrawal from the Paris Agreement during his first term.
Trump is a friend of oil and gas, and has promised to slash fuel prices for consumers. What he didn’t want Americans to realise is that Joe Biden oversaw the US reach record oil and gas production levels.
In fact, the US produces more crude oil each year than any other country, ever: the Saudi Arabia of Oil.
Trump wants to take this to the next level.
Emission-reduction policies can be broadly categorised as carrot-based or stick-based. Trump is vehemently opposed to both. The EU has led the way on the ‘stick’ approach, having introduced carbon-pricing across certain industries in 2005. The US has never successfully reached consensus on pricing carbon.
In 2022, Biden successfully delivered the Inflation Reduction Act (the IRA, but I recommend that Irish readers pronounce it “eye-rah”). This was the most significant climate legislation that the US has ever passed, making it by-extension one of the most significant the world has ever seen. It relies on ‘carrots’ to accelerate decarbonisation through tax credits, loans, grants, and subsidies for clean energy initiatives. It incentivises everything from battery factories, to solar panel manufacturing facilities, to home heat pumps, to life extensions for existing nuclear plants. Like most developed economies, the US has been on a downward trajectory in emissions, but the IRA raised the predicted range of decrease by 2030 from 25-31% to 33-40%, relative to 2005 levels.
Trump has said that he wants to revoke the IRA. In reality, he is unlikely to halt America’s energy transition.
While no Republicans voted in favour of the IRA, 60% of the clean energy projects enabled by the act are in Republican voting districts, representing 68% of the total new jobs and 85% of the total funding. One suggested reason is that these states are easier to build in, having less burdensome regulation. Republicans might not be happy if investment in manufacturing facilities is pulled from their constituencies. Elon Musk’s companies, too, are recipients of IRA benefits. Meanwhile, Democrat-voting states maintain their agency to take action at a state-level.
Ultimately, the favourable economics of renewables will continue to drive their deployment, and many aspects of the IRA are aligned with Trump’s agenda. Trump campaigned to make America a ‘Manufacturing Superpower’.
Given that household demand for solar-panels is unlikely to subside anytime soon, surely he would rather they be produced in American factories rather than imported from China, which has a near-monopoly on the market today.
Trump is, of course, unpredictable. He might stick to his word and ruthlessly repeal support for clean energy. He has vowed to halt offshore wind projects. During his Joe Rogan Podcast appearance he spewed misinformation about electric vehicle chargers costing billions of dollars and he claimed that onshore wind was the most expensive form of electricity (it’s cheaper than coal and gas). His administration will not respect the scientific consensus, and may silence government scientists. He will probably weaken the American Environmental Protection Agency.
In short, Trump’s reelection is bad news for climate action. However, the US now accounts for only about 13% of global emissions, and this will continue to decrease due to his predecessor’s policies. While progress on the remaining 87% of global emissions would be easier if the world’s largest economy demonstrated leadership, the blow is softened by the fact that the US was never truly a climate leader. This election is not the end of the road on climate.