U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement for the second time just 24 hours after taking office.
The environmental agreement binds 196 countries with a goal to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) compared to pre-industrial levels.
The only other countries are Iran, Libya and Yemen.
“America will once again be a manufacturing nation, and we will have more oil and gas than any other manufacturing nation on earth,” Trump said at his inauguration. “We will use it.” said. Speech at the U.S. Capitol on Monday. “We’re going to drill, baby, we’re going to drill.”
Trump also walked away from the climate deal during his first term, asserting the theory that climate change is a hoax propagated by China to hinder U.S. economic growth. There were no such claims in his recent campaign.
Unlike President Trump’s 2017 withdrawal, which took four years to take effect and then was overturned by the incoming Joe Biden administration, this withdrawal will take effect within a year.
Here’s what you need to know:
Why is Trump doing something like that again?
President Trump recently said the Paris Agreement will cost the United States billions of dollars. He cited the developed world’s commitment to provide $100 billion in subsidies to developing countries to promote the transition to renewable energy. The United States has also traditionally opposed all forms of carbon fines imposed on polluting companies and has not established a carbon market.
Trump has also continued to support domestic fossil fuel production as a form of national energy security. He did not explain why he does not view domestically produced renewable energy in the same way.
Michalis Mathioulakis, academic director of the Greek Energy Forum, a Thessaloniki-based think tank, said: “The investments in fossil gas that have already been made in the United States will roughly double U.S. gas production and exports over the next five years. “It is,” he said. “Trump will certainly take credit for this, but we cannot increase production in the short term.
Mathioulakis and many other analysts believe the United States wants to replace Russia as Europe’s main fossil gas supplier. Because the United States views Europe’s dependence on Russian gas as a security liability. It also deprives Russia of its most profitable market: tax revenues.
“Certainly the United States is trying to replace Russia in the global market,” Matiulakis said. “Let’s not forget that the ban on exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) was lifted during the Obama (former U.S. President Barack) era.”
Will America’s energy transition stall?
Trump’s first effort to stop decarbonizing the economy failed.
According to U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) data, 35,723 megawatts of coal-fired power plants were shut down during Trump’s first term. That’s more than President Obama’s first six years in office. They have been replaced by power plants fueled by less polluting fossil gases, a trend that began during the Obama era and continued unabated during Trump’s first term.
“Reversing the momentum for clean energy in the U.S. and globally will not be easy,” said Nikos Mantzaris, founder of The Green Tank, an energy think tank in Athens. “Renewables are by far the cheapest form of energy, and in the United States, states make their own decisions.”
Solar and wind energy grew during Trump’s first term, and by December 2020, as Trump prepared to leave office, it had surpassed coal energy for the first time in U.S. history.
This trend will continue.
In 2022, then-President Joe Biden passed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which provided $270 billion in tax credits and other incentives for renewable energy investments. By August of last year, IRAs had stimulated $215 billion in investment in solar and wind energy production, and the government had provided $8 billion in tax credits to homeowners for making energy-saving retrofits.
Biden’s stated goal was to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030 compared to 2005 and by 60% by 2035. Biden signed off on numerous IRA projects in his final two months in office, and these grants will continue to be paid out. It lasts until 2032, four years after President Trump leaves office.
The EIA predicts that most of the growth in U.S. electricity consumption in 2025 and 2026 will be provided by solar power.
This is part of a global change.
The International Energy Agency, a Paris-based intergovernmental organization and think tank, predicts that renewables will account for two-thirds of electricity production in developed countries by 2030.
Mathioulakis also believed Trump’s policies would not bring about much change. But he told Al Jazeera that the transition to solar and wind energy will likely slow for other reasons.
“Wherever renewable energy sources were being developed rapidly, there was a problem once they reached more than 40% of the energy mix: we could not scale up our use of clean energy unless we developed electricity storage and a flexible grid,” Mathioulakis said. .” Mathioulakis said. . “So it slowed down. Anyway, this was going to come to Europe and America.”
How much carbon does the United States put into the air compared to other countries?
According to the World Resources Institute, the United States will emit 6 billion tons of carbon-equivalent gases in 2023, making it the world’s second-largest polluter after China. This is approximately 16% of the world’s 37 billion tonnes.
China tops the list with more than twice the emissions of the United States. The European Union and India follow the United States with about 3.4 billion tons each.
How are other countries reacting?
China’s Foreign Ministry said it was “concerned” about the US withdrawal.
“Climate change is a common challenge facing all of humanity. No country can avoid this,” Beijing’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
EU climate committee member Wopke Hoekstra called this “a truly unfortunate development.”
Will this expose U.S. goods to the EU’s carbon tax?
The recently inaugurated European Commission is expected to seriously consider imposing a carbon tax on goods imported from countries without a carbon market such as the European Union’s Emissions Trading System (ETS).
ETS sells carbon credits to polluters, giving them an incentive to switch to cleaner forms of energy.
The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) is intended to level the playing field for European energy companies and manufacturers competing with countries that do not impose pollution fees.
If Trump follows through on his threat to impose tariffs on European exports to the United States, implementation of CBAM against the United States will become much more likely.
