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“BY FARtheUSNRDCIRANRDCOPECUNIRAIRAYour browser does not support the element.By Vijay Vaitheeswaran, Global energy and climate-innovation editor, The Economist, single most important thing the can do in this moment to combat the global climate crisis is to send Harris to the White House.” So declared Manish Bapna, head of the Action Fund, an influential green lobbying group, in advance of the American presidential election. During his first term, Mr Trump embraced fossil fuels and tried to roll back environmental regulations. During the 2024 campaign, his energy mantra was “Drill, baby, drill!” and he mocked climate science and electric vehicles.That stood in stark contrast to Kamala Harris, his defeated opponent, who threaded the needle by supporting both hydrocarbons and clean energy. She vowed to defend Joe Biden’s climate accomplishments. The most important of these, the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act (), would—if kept in place—spark a $3trn investment boom into a range of low-carbon technologies over a decade. However, Mr Trump ridiculed that law on the campaign trail as the “Green New Scam” and vowed to kill it.Now that Mr Trump has won, will Mr Bapna’s fears be realised, or will the president-elect’s pro-fossil-fuel and anti-climate rhetoric prove mere campaign bombast? Ideologues at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank, believe radical change is possible. With help from Trump advisers, they have prepared proposals to reverse environmental policies and speed up deregulation. Mr Trump has disavowed that effort, known as Project 2025, but parroted its main points on deregulation and embracing fossil fuels.With Republicans in full control of Congress, some of that agenda will now move forward. There will be few new restraints on oil and gas drilling, and Mr Biden’s pause on approvals of new projects to export liquefied natural gas will be lifted. Because nobody, including Mr Trump, expected him to win in 2016, he was ill-prepared to govern. Many of his appointees were incompetent loyalists, and their efforts at regulatory reform were often sloppily executed. The brought 163 lawsuits against the Trump administration, and won 88% of those that were resolved. This time his advisers will be more competent and more formidable. Still, American presidents have less control over energy than people think. Oil prices are largely set by the cartel. Mr Trump yanked America out of the ’s Paris agreement on climate change, but that neither led to a collapse of global efforts nor prevented an acceleration in climate action by states, cities and firms. To the chagrin of progressives, and due in part to conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, America became the world’s biggest oil and gas producer during Mr Biden’s term (see chart).Mr Trump’s promise to kill the will probably fall flat as well. Nearly four-fifths of its lavish tax credits flow to Republican districts, which explains why nearly a score of Republican congressmen issued a letter opposing its repeal. Even a senior oil-and-gas lobbyist says his clients, who benefit from the ’s subsidies for hydrogen production and carbon capture, “will go to the mat” to prevent its repeal.Mr Trump’s victory will not mean a collapse in climate efforts; clean-energy investment has gained a momentum of its own as the cost of renewables plunges. The fundamental question, says Mr Bapna, is whether America will be a leader or a laggard. But the policy uncertainty Mr Trump brings will give Wall Street pause. Wood Mackenzie, a consultancy, reckons that his presidency will reduce investment in America’s energy transition by $1trn, to roughly $6trn, by 2050. America’s economy will continue to get greener, but brown energy is not going away.
