Washington Post via City Desk ABQ (Nov. 6, 2024) – President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House could reverse the gains the United States has made in fighting global warming, experts said, by cementing his plans to unleash domestic fossil fuel production, dismantle key environmental rules and scale back federal support for renewable energy and electric vehicles.
It has also raised fears amongU.S. allies and even some major energy executives who warn a U.S. exit from global climate efforts will hurt American industry as the rest of the world shiftsaway from fossil fuels.
Trump’s election creates “a very long pathway for fossil fuels,” Ben Cahill, an energy scholar at the University of Texas at Austin, said in a phone interview Wednesday. “Investors will feel the outlook is brighter. The industry will be under less pressure.”
While energy was not a focal point of a presidential campaign consumed by immigration, abortion and the future of democracy, it is a policy area where presidents have the authority to make sweeping changes.
Trump – who has dismissed climate change as a “hoax” and courted oil company executives throughout the campaign – has outlined plans that have the potential to boost oil and gas profits as well as greenhouse gas emissions that threaten the world’s climate goals.
Trump is expected to immediately take aim at the Paris climate accord. His plan to withdraw the United States from the pact – as he did during his first term – comes at a critical moment for the compact aimed at limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit)above preindustrial levels. Climate scientists are already warning the planet is on track to blow pastthat target: on Wednesday the European climate agency Copernicus announced that 2024 is assured to be the first calendar year where the global temperature rise has averaged 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Trump has planned a flurry of other actions to bolster U.S. oil and gas companies. He is expected to ease a suite of restrictions on the oil industry’s emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. And he will probably cancel the Biden administration’s pause on permits for new liquefied natural gas export projects, clearing the way for the industry to build billions of dollars worth of infrastructure that could increase U.S. emissions and keep gas flowing to other nations for decades to come.
Oil companies welcome the radical policy shift. “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 harnesses our nation’s resources and builds on the successes of his first term,” Mike Sommers, president of the American Petroleum Institute,said in a statement.
