Trump 2.0 will slow, not kill, the global energy transition

Donald Trump’s return to the White House has raised fears that the global energy transition will be thrown into reverse. The US President has vowed to “drill, baby, drill,” roll back environmental regulations and end the “green new scam.” As earth continues to warm – this January was the warmest on record, and 2024 was the first year with global average temperatures exceeding 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels – and decarbonization metrics still lag scientific net-zero pathways, many worry we’re about to witness a worldwide slowdown in the shift away from fossil fuels.

But Trump couldn’t kill the green transition during his first term, and he won’t succeed this time either. The reason is simple: technological breakthroughs, steep learning curves and plummeting costs have made clean energy sources cheaper than fossil fuels in most places. And whereas in 2017 the revolution was just getting started, by now it has reached escape velocity. This momentum is being driven not by politics or government intervention but by markets. That deep-red Texas leads the nation in renewable deployment is a case in point: politics will no longer hold back the American energy transition.

That’s not to say that politics won’t slow the transition. In the United States, the Trump administration is already taking steps to loosen environmental and climate regulations, promote domestic oil and gas production, support the outlook for gas-fired power plants and end clean-energy and EV-adoption incentives. The President’s day one executive orders expanded the federal lands available for oil and gas leasing, reversed former president Joe Biden’s suspension of new LNG terminal approvals and paused new wind projects on federal land and water. Aided by Republican majorities in Congress, Trump will look to repeal roughly half of the Inflation Reduction Act’s footprint, including support for EVs and offshore wind as well as the Investment Tax Credits and Production Tax Credits.

Yet no edicts from Washington can halt the forward movement of the US energy transition. Despite Trump’s claims of a “national energy emergency,” the US has been a net energy exporter since 2019 and already produces more oil than any country in history. But with prices low and US oil and gas output already at record levels, fossil fuel production will struggle to go much higher in the near term – no matter what Trump does.

The deployment of clean energy will therefore continue, driven by increasing power demand and declining costs – especially for solar energy. American electric utilities will still pursue aggressive renewable buildouts to keep pace with rising energy use and ensure grid adequacy, even as new gas-fired power plants expand, too. US automakers will not abandon their long-term EV plans, even as the Trump administration removes EV incentives and charging infrastructure funding. And Democratic-controlled states will continue pursuing ambitious decarbonization policies as they did during Trump’s first term.

Perhaps more importantly, meaningful parts of the IRA will remain in place because of their political support with Republican constituencies, which have benefitted disproportionately from the investments and job creation it has created. Next-generation clean energy technologies such as nuclear, geothermal and carbon capture and storage will continue receiving support.

America’s retreat from global climate leadership will have significant but not fatal implications for the pace of the energy transition abroad. Trump’s decision to pull the US out of the Paris Agreement again and withdraw funding from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change will reduce climate finance flows for emerging economies, dampen their enthusiasm for accelerated climate action and encourage some, like Argentina and Indonesia, to follow Trump’s lead.

But just as the US transition is unstoppable, so too is the global transition. Industrialized countries other than the US will remain broadly committed to the Paris Agreement. Europe views the energy transition as a way to reduce its import reliance and improve its energy security. While India, the world’s fastest-growing emitter, sees decarbonization as an economic opportunity and a necessary step to reduce some of the world’s worst air pollution. And most other emerging markets are eager to accelerate their renewables deployments for purely economic reasons. Most critically, China – the largest source of global emissions – is set to reach an emissions peak five years ahead of its previously stated 2030 target.

Chinese manufacturers in technologies like solar panels, EVs and batteries – which already dominate global supply chains – also won’t abandon their expansion ambitions because of changes in US demand or market access. If anything, they see the Trump administration’s policies as an opportunity to gain global market share, speeding global adoption of these technologies and driving further price declines. While the US falls further behind China in clean energy, the continuing drop in renewable power costs will encourage more emerging markets to adopt cheaper domestic renewables like solar and wind over volatile imported fossil fuels.

The economic and technological forces driving the clean energy revolution have simply become too powerful for any single country – even the US – or president – even Trump – to stop. The global transition will power forward, even if the journey includes a few more bumps along the way.