Global Green Energy Trade Will Continue Without Trump, Bypass the U.S., Analysts Say

By pulling the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, shredding his predecessor’s energy transition and climate initiatives, and embracing an extreme “Drill, Baby, Drill” agenda for oil and gas, Donald Trump is making his country an outlier in a global community that still plans to confront the climate emergency while reaping the benefits of a clean energy economy, analysts say.

“Well, that was unpleasant,” wrote Canadian Climate Institute President Rick Smith, as he surveyed the wreckage of the half-dozen energy-related executive orders that Trump issued on his first day back in the White House. But Smith cited four big-picture trends—public concern about extreme weather, intensifying action by state and local governments, the “inescapable” economics of the net-zero transition, and the reality that “the new low-emission machines are simply better”—that will be beyond anything Trump can control.

“The fight for climate progress has never been easy,” Smith said. “Certainly, the election of a climate change vandal south of the border complicates things. But the forces accelerating the net zero transition are now beyond even the U.S. President’s considerable powers to reign in.”

Major Economies Are Moving On

A small flurry of analyses over the last week argued that Trump’s determination to pull back from clean energy makes his country an outlier on a global scale. “Most major economies are investing in ever-cheaper solar and wind power,” the New York Times wrote. And that means the U.S. “risks further ceding a global market to China.”

More broadly, the Times said, countries from the European Union and Britain to Thailand, Brazil, and even petro-state Saudi Arabia are charting a different course. “Even as coal, oil, and gas still power the global economy, and more fossil fuels are burned year after year, the movement globally is toward heavy investment in solar, wind, and batteries, the prices of which have fallen sharply in recent years.”

With renewable energy drawing nearly twice as much investment last year as fossil fuels, and fossil companies themselves pouring more money into shareholder dividends and buybacks than new exploration and development, “the world is undergoing an energy transition that is unstoppable,” United Nations climate secretary Simon Stiell told last week’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Celeste Saulo had a similar message when she talked to Agence France-Presse and Reuters last week in Davos. “I believe that many countries will continue moving in the direction of green energy,” she declared. The shift toward renewables “brings wealth to countries,” she added, and “that will not change.”

With Trump threatening trade action or various forms of annexation against multiple countries, some of his targets are beginning to band together. Canada and Mexico “are putting aside their differences and forming a more united front,” against Trump’s threats, the Financial Times reports.

“Political noise may have caused delays and clouded judgments in Ottawa, but Canadians might have finally realized that better coordination with Mexico is crucial,” Diego Marroquin Bitar, a scholar with the Washington, DC-based Wilson Center, told the paper.

For the European Union, Financial Times economics commentator Martin Sandbu foresees multiple opportunities—from redirecting its own funds from the U.S. to domestic investments, to doubling down on green energy incentives to widen its advantage in renewables and greentech, to seeking “a helping hand from Trump” to solidify its sanctions against Russian oil and gas—knowing that Trump will relish the short-term gain of increased gas sales while the continent moves to more fully decarbonize.

Trump Already Losing Ground

The U.S. also faces a wider problem of Trump’s own making. Over an eight-year span in which the U.S. has “wielded tariffs as a weapon,” some countries have retaliated, offered concessions, or sought international arbitration. “But most just quietly moved on, seeking trade with countries other than the U.S.,” writes Rockefeller International Chair Ruchir Sharma. Already, that response has led to a reduction in the U.S. share of global trade, offset by increases in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.

During a period when four out of five countries around the world saw trade increase as a share of their GDP—with gains of at least 10% in more than a dozen jurisdictions—the U.S. share has “declined significantly”.

“Trump says tariffs will command respect, and help restore U.S. power,” Sharma concludes. But “to date, the ‘America first’ tariff regime has done less to damage its prime target, China, than to compel U.S. allies to look elsewhere for trade. So the risk of even broader tariffs may be less about triggering trade wars than undermining U.S. relevance as a trading power, and eventually sapping its economic prowess.”

Cover photo: UN Climate Change/flickr