For performance and profit: The retreat from renewables has a dark and dangerous underside – CleanTechnica

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The existential climate crisis we face requires political and policy solutions that weaken the position of the fossil fuel industry and their state allies. Unfortunately, the current US presidential election season is full of hyperbole, controversy and misinformation. Such discourse threatens to result in a retreat from renewable energy sources in favor of the continued burning of fossil fuels, which have far-reaching and destructive effects on our climate and ecosystems.

It’s time fossil fuel companies are held accountable for their part in environmental degradation. Nevertheless, addressing the harmful effects of fossil fuel energy decisions at different levels of governance is a complex task for policy makers.

On the plus side, the local energy balance in a new energy system that does not use fossil fuels would bring energy self-sufficiency through smart grids based on innovative market mechanisms. However, such a shift would require initial regulatory steps to make sustainability disclosure standard setting and sustainability benchmarking practices the norm.

Protecting the environment and human rights, consumer interests, and investor interests requires a threshold standard of due diligence that is under threat in the U.S. due to Big Oil’s pressure to maintain its power and profitability.

As authors in 2023 Energy research and social change The article explains that there are public health harms and disproportionate impacts throughout the life cycle of coal, oil and gas in the US.

“Each phase of the fossil fuel life cycle – extraction, processing, transportation and combustion – creates toxic air and water pollution, as well as greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which are driving the global climate crisis.

Big Oil is well aware that federal renewable energy incentives are “eating into their profits and threatening their stranglehold on energy consumption.” LA Times The editorial board argued at the beginning of the summer. Former President Donald Trump and other Republican politicians want to exploit consumer concerns by “spreading misinformation” that is “in service of the pro-fossil agenda” — which they say “is not surprising coming from the oil industry or from Trump. .”

Since the 1990 election cycle, more than two-thirds of the oil and gas sector’s contributions to candidates and party committees have gone to Republicans, according to Open Secrets. The electric power industry is another big donor. Mining is less generous, but all the more partisan. Trump has received more cash donations than any other federal candidate this election cycle, prompting an “easily rebuttable mischaracterization designed to create anger and confusion among voters.” LA Times Says the editorial board. Such efforts by some of the world’s most powerful companies serve to “sow confusion and prey on our anxieties in the pursuit of power and profit.”

Trump is loyal to Big Oil, as a meeting with industry bigwigs this spring brought a promise that a $1 billion campaign donation would introduce a system-wide approach to oil and gas production. “Drill, drill, drill” is Trump’s pumping mantra.

Republicans are not talking about the historic levels of investment in domestic vehicle and battery manufacturing under the Biden-Harris Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Their only story is to go back to the golden era of the fossil fuel industry. In doing so, according to the Center for American Progress, they aim to “spread misinformation and obstruct elected governments’ climate efforts, promote anti-democratic movements and candidates, and even undermine democratic rights.”

In a book from 2024 called Autocracy, Inc.: Dictators who want to rule the worldjournalist Anne Applebaum explores how today’s autocrats are working together to undermine democracy. He says that “in the language of the democratic world, which means rights, laws, the rule of law, justice, responsibility, [and] transparency…[is] harmful to them’, especially as language about equality and fairness in all matters of the autocratic worldview. And so they need to undermine people who use such oppositional language, “and if they can, discredit it.”

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it, when we hear Trump’s words?

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Be careful what you wish for: Trump’s retreat from renewables

Over the past few months, it has become clear that Trump is not a fan of renewable energy. If re-elected, he has vowed to gut the De-Inflation Act so that “all new spending grants and handouts” pave the way for federal savings — or so he says. While Trump also favors tariffs on Chinese goods, his promise to weaken the inflation-reducing law could hamper U.S. efforts to catch up with China in the production of solar panels and electric vehicles.

Climate change? Forgery. Trump claims that climate change does not affect extreme weather. Five months into his administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration were leaderless. And while Trump has offered federal support for relief efforts after several powerful storms, he has been slow to respond to many weather disasters, most notably Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.

Paris Climate Agreement? He withdrew from her once and vowed to do so again. There is no way it would tolerate voluntary greenhouse gas targets, especially if they are individual to each country’s build-out, capacity and climate pollution record.

Trump initially said electric cars were too expensive and had too little range. Say goodbye, Trump threatened, to the electric car — that is, unless a billionaire donates to his campaign, and then Trump softens his stance for a while. Since Tesla CEO Elon Musk endorsed him, Trump has said he likes all kinds of vehicles, including EVs. It’s troubling to think that Musk could become a key player after the November election.

Still, Trump wants to eliminate the tax credits in the tax credits for electric cars that are part of the Inflation Reduction Act. That could mean scrapping statutory subsidies for electric cars and incentives that encourage small businesses to install charging stations. However, many of the investments benefiting from IRAs are in Republican states, and targeting these projects may be politically unpopular with Trump’s base.

The Trump administration has rolled back more than 100 environmental regulations, and every indication is that it will continue that process if re-elected. A 2020 analysis predicted 1.8 billion more metric tons of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere by 2035 than there would be without his repeal. A 2022 report by researchers at Yale and Columbia found that the US’s environmental performance had declined sharply as a result of the Trump administration’s actions.

Lest we forget, the UN Climate Change Conference (COP28), which seemed destined for greenwashing, adopted an 11,000-page document that was billed as the “beginning of the end” of the fossil fuel era. The Global Compact calls for “a transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a fair, orderly and impartial manner” – including explicit language aimed at ending Big Oil. The victory gave activists a baseline of language they can use as leverage to try to win all the battles ahead to defuse the dominance of fossil fuels.

Trump would likely use his promise from his first day as a dictator to reject such progress.