Donald Trump will push fossil fuels and undo renewable energy policies, but it ultimately won’t stop clean energy’s momentum.
Trump has always pushed for more oil drilling and fewer regulations, left the Paris Agreement in his first term as president, says he hates “windmills,” promised to scrap offshore wind on “day one” if he won the 2024 election, and calls climate change a “scam.” And now that he’s won, this is a direct threat to the US’s pledge to reach net zero by 2050. After all, federal policy directly impacts the pace of renewable energy growth, especially when it comes to incentives and research funding.
The Biden administration’s groundbreaking Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which has spurred a clean energy boom, will be challenged under Trump. Because Republican states have received 80% of the IRA’s money with which they’ve built factories and created thousands of jobs, a complete IRA repeal is unlikely. What’s more probable is that the Republicans phase out tax credits earlier than planned or cap overall funding.
Federal financial support for innovative technologies and projects could also take a hit. Brendan Bell, COO of Aligned Climate Capital, who formerly led the US Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office, told Electrek:
My partner Peter and I led the DOE Loan Program Office under President Obama. We supported the first utility-scale solar and storage projects, as well as early EV investments – including the first loan to Tesla.
Today, these technologies are commercialized and are propelling the clean energy transition. None of it would have been possible if these programs had been cut off 10 years ago.
Put simply, Trump can’t turn back the tide of clean energy – but he could delay tomorrow’s solutions and the birth of new industries.
BloombergNEF’s “2H 2024 US Clean Energy Market Outlook,” released at the end of October, examined the worst-case scenario, where control of both the Senate and the House leads to a full repeal of the IRA tax credits:
The wind, solar, and energy storage sectors jointly see a 17% drop in total new capacity additions over 2025-2035, with 927 gigawatts (GW) of cumulative build compared to 1,118GW in BNEF’s base case forecast. Wind sees the greatest fall in activity in this scenario with a 35% drop, followed by energy storage at 15% and solar at 13% relative to BNEF’s base case.
That’s a blow we can’t afford at a time when we need to reduce emissions by 50% from 2005 levels by 2030 to avoid climate disasters becoming even worse than they already are.
But all is not lost. The clean energy market isn’t solely driven by federal policy. Over the last decade, solar, wind, and EVs have become more cost-competitive and popular. State policies play a huge role too, and many states are committed to their own clean energy goals regardless of who sits in the White House. States like California, New York, and Washington have ambitious targets to combat climate change, and deep red Texas is No. 1 in the US for both solar and wind.
Corporations are also key players. Companies like Amazon, Google, and Walmart have committed to going 100% renewable, and they’re not about to reverse course. This demand keeps the market for renewables strong. Plus, there’s significant public support for clean energy jobs, and renewables create more employment opportunities than fossil fuels in many regions of the country.
JD Dillon, chief marketing officer of California-based solar tech manufacturer Tigo Energy (Nasdaq: TYGO), said to Electrek, “The march toward renewable clean energy is both inevitable and the right thing to do. In a perfect world, we would eliminate partisanship from the renewable energy conversation because everyone benefits from a cleaner environment and affordable energy. Unfortunately, none of us live in said perfect world.”
The US clean energy sector may slow down, but it’s hard to stop a train that has already left the station. What consequences this slower-moving train will have for the US and the world remains to be seen.
Read more: Trump says he’ll end the EV mandate. The only problem: there isn’t one.
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