Try as he might, Trump can’t kill clean energy

President-elect Donald Trump has called global warming “a canard,” “a hoax” and “nonexistent.” He once said that the idea that global warming is caused by fossil fuel emissions was “created by and for the Chinese to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” Asked why sea levels are rising, Trump replied that “scientists have no idea what’s going to happen. It’s weather.”

Pressed to acknowledge that climate change plays a role in the frequency and severity of wildfires, Trump declared, “It’ll start getting cooler. You just watch.” During his first term, he blamed a catastrophic round of wildfires in California on bad forest management: “You have forests all over the world. You don’t have fires like you do in California.” Neither then nor now did Trump mention California’s new normal: prolonged droughts and fierce winds.

Trump has promised that as soon as he returns to the White House, he will withdraw (again) from the Paris Climate Accords; “drill, baby, drill” for oil and gas; and “rescind all unspent funds” related to clean energy in the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act. He may also end subsidies for electric cars, school buses and offshore wind facilities, encourage fossil fuel extraction on public lands, instruct the Department of Energy to change emissions regulations and delay loans and grants from the CHIPS and Science Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

Trump’s actions, and the rhetoric that accompanies them, will almost certainly slow the transition to clean energy. But these days not even a U.S. president can kill that transition — especially when a majority of Americans believe that climate change has already caused substantial damage to the country. And Trump is fighting against market forces, technological innovation and pork-barrel politics.

Clean energy policies are deeply embedded in the global economy, with China often leading the way in the development of new technologies. In 2023, 90 percent of new capacity throughout the world came from clean energy sources. Stringent European Union regulations compel multinational corporations in the U.S. and elsewhere to prioritize renewables and decarbonization in their supply chains. As costs for wind, solar and electric continue to decline and economic growth is decoupled from fossil fuel use, a backward-looking U.S. will find it increasingly difficult to preserve and develop markets in industrial and industrializing countries.

The U.S. now spends about $2 trillion per year on clean energy projects, more than twice the amount allocated for new supplies of oil, gas and coal. Heat pumps now outsell gas furnaces. In 2023, Americans added three times as much solar capacity as natural gas. Automobile companies are spending billions on electric vehicles, charging stations and lighter and smaller batteries; utilities have acquired vast amounts of renewables.

Every dollar the government allocates for “green” technologies generates $5 to $6 dollars in private investment. Several states and localities now require a higher percentage of electricity to come from clean energy sources. Michigan, Maine, Massachusetts and Minnesota have recently made their climate action portfolio standards more robust.

Many large-scale projects have broken ground or are about to be launched. Two days after Trump was reelected, for example, the Department of Energy finalized a $475 million loan for a battery recycling facility. Clean energy employs about 3.3 million people, one out of every 50 workers in the U.S.; their wages on average are 21 percent higher than those of workers in other occupations.

Meanwhile, fossil fuel companies, which are already producing more oil and gas than ever before in the U.S. and selling a lot of it to other countries, may ignore “drill, baby, drill” cheerleading because creating more supply will depress prices.

The principal beneficiaries of Biden administration climate action appropriations, by a whopping margin, are Republican congressional districts in red states. Texas is the biggest winner in the clean energy boom, and Florida is second. Rural areas in these states are eager to set aside land for solar panel manufacturing facilities, electric vehicle plants and lithium refineries. And the cost of labor there is lower than it is in blue states.

Not surprisingly, then, in August 2024, 18 Republican members of the House urged Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) not to repeal tax credits that have created tens of thousands of jobs in their districts. And Johnson has indicated that he will take a scalpel, not a sledgehammer, to existing clean energy policies.

With their tongues partly in their cheeks, some industry experts predict that with Trump in the White House, financial firms will no longer use the terms “climate,” “sustainability” or “E.S.G.” (environmental, social and governance) when they broker deals. Instead, they will emphasize the need for “transition finance,” “resilience,” “critical technology” and “energy security.”

Many experts emphasize that the transition to a world powered by clean energy is well underway. The only question to be asked, albeit with understandable apprehension, is how long it will take to happen.

Glenn C. Altschuler is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Emeritus Professor of American Studies at Cornell University.

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