Advertisement
http://www.birminghamsalon.org/index.php?id=7264961275460747633Since his re-election to the Presidency, Donald Trump has launched an assault on many of the policies that have become part of a political consensus in the developed world over the last two decades. From trade tariffs to Ukraine and Palestine, the stated policy of the US can change from day to day and only seems to be guided by short-term negotiating tactics. At home mass redundancies of government employees have been announced with the consequences only considered afterwards. The policies may be incoherent but Trump seems to relish antagonising his culture war opponents, so is he just trolling or does the second Trump Presidency point us to some deeper political trends?
On his first day in office, President Trump withdrew the USA from the Paris Agreement and other aspects of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and issued executive orders to promote oil and gas exploration and production. Export bans were lifted. Incentives for wind and solar and requirements for electric vehicles ended. In terms of what the President described as "that liquid gold under our feet", the USA has 360 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil. Additionally there are 3,000 trillion cubic feet of gas.
This appears to be an abrupt about turn in energy policy, with $300 billion dollars of Biden's Inflation Reduction Act spending suspended. But there is evidence of already growing disillusionment with renewables and net zero targets and changes would have had to be made whether or not Donald Trump had won in 2024. Under the Biden administration, the US has already produced record levels of oil and gas. California with the largest amount of renewable energy production, has the highest energy costs. The growth in the EV market has slowed dramatically in spite of incentives, and in spite of government funding, charging stations for them have not been built. Even where there was more appetite for renewable energy, it was environmentalist activists, the supposed drivers of the renewable energy revolution, who often stood in the way of them being built. There are more solar farms in Texas than in other, Democrat voting, states.
Trump clearly believes that hostility to net zero targets is a vote winner. Not only are the restrictions and levies a burden on ordinary people, the policies also look like futile gestures. The US electorate is aware that whilst fossil fuel energy is demonised and their cost of living is rising significantly, other countries are exploiting it in their own best interests and ignoring net zero. McKinsey estimates for Russia to achieve net zero it would cost it three times each year what it spends on its military budget. Obviously this isn't going to be its priority. China has increased its use of coal and renewables only make up 10% of its energy use. The coal is used to produce, among other things, solar panels and EVs which it sells to the rest of the world.
However, the net zero approach has had an impact on fossil fuel extraction productivity, innovation in renewable technologies, nuclear fission, and an increasing race to make nuclear fusion and new types of fission reactors a success. This has consequences for fossil fuel demand and related jobs. Big oil companies such as BP and Chevron are in trouble, with reduced profits and reserves. In the case of BP, this is linked to ESG activism-influenced strategic direction away from fossil fuels, which is now seen as misguided. But it begs a question about capacity to take advantage of the new appetite for fossil fuel exploitation in the US. France has just brought more nuclear power on-stream. And China is now producing improved solar panels, lithium ferrous phosphate batteries and cheaper EVs implying the traditional electrification journey via installing a national grid has been disrupted and that solar power may form the main energy infrastructure in many parts of the world in future. Payments to renewable companies in the US to stabilise the grid by switching off so as to not overload it have also created new anti-fossil fuel vested interests, and US states are not obliged to comply with President Trump's orders.
Will the US be able to make the best of this new approach to fossil fuel exploitation, reindustrialise and grow its economy or is the answer to look at energy needs as a whole, without favouring one source over another? In the UK and most of Europe the main political parties are still committed to net zero. Is this about to change and what would the consequences be when so much capital (political and financial) has been invested already? And if we were not seriously, at a global level, on the road to net zero, how should we deal with climate change?
Speaker: Ben Pile. Ben is a net zero sceptic, independent writer and researcher, filmmaker and commentator. He has been writing on the science and politics of climate and the environment for publications such as Spiked-online since the mid-2000s and is a frequent contributor to shows on GB News, Talk TV and others.
Advertisement
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
CherryReds, 88-92 John Bright St,Birmingham, United Kingdom
