Post election: The fight for climate is far from over
I clicked refresh every other minute on the NY Times needle that predicted a Trump win with ABC News and Twitter in the background. The results didn’t change. The next morning, I woke up feeling numb. What does this mean for climate technology? Will Trump repeal the IRA? Will he pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement again?
I snapped open my laptop and began to search for answers. Headline after headline confirmed my greatest fears. The more I read the worse it all seemed.
Sound familiar? You’re not alone. I was on a downward spiral until my co-worker shared this quote with me, “In difficult times, optimism is a duty, not an indulgence.”
I looked for the negative and that was all I saw. What would happen if I stopped?
I found that there are reasons why the fight for climate is far from over. Here are the top six reasons I pulled from speaking with experts and reading reports. All are grounded in data. All are here to balance out the negativity with glimmers of optimism.
After this post, we will return to the climate deep dives that you love.
Market forces are driving the adoption of renewable energy, not policy.
Wind and solar have become cost-competitive with fossil fuels in many states, making them attractive investments regardless of policy. Our power mix continued to shift toward clean energy even during Trump’s first term in 2020. Coal production also declined by 26% during Trump’s presidency despite his promises to revive the industry. With AI booming, large corporations have struck deals on nuclear (ex. Google and Kairos Power), geothermal (ex. Meta and Sage Geosystems), and renewable energy (ex. $10B investment from Microsoft) to power data centers. A Trump administration can try to slow things down, but we aren’t returning to the days of fossil fuel dominance. Clean energy is simply cheaper.
Source: EIA, WoodMac, FERC, Research & Consultant Reports, FactSet as of 2Q 2024
A full repeal of the IRA is unlikely since it benefits Republican states too.
More than half of cleantech investments post-IRA have gone to Republican-leaning states.
Source: Bloomberg 2024
In August this year, 18 House Republicans wrote to Speaker Mike Johnson ahead of the election results asking him not to cut clean energy tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) if the GOP maintains or expands its House majority next year. In their words, “Energy tax credits have spurred innovation, incentivized investment, and created good jobs in many parts of the country – including many districts represented by members of our conference. We must reverse the policies that harm American families while protecting and refining those that are making our country more energy-independent and Americans more energy-secure. As Republicans, we support an all-of-the-above approach to energy development and tax credits that incentivize domestic production, innovation, and delivery from all sources.”
It’s not easy for Trump to roll back environmental regulations.
While the Trump administration attempted to roll back 100+ environmental rules, most were blocked, delayed, or withdrawn in court. The Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law found that the Trump administration lost 87% of these attempted changes. The court ruled against the agency or the relevant agency withdrew the action after being sued.
The $61 billion already awarded by the IRA will be hard to claw back.
The good news for states and localities that have been awarded IRA funds is that presidential administration attempts to take back already awarded funds will be legally, politically, and operationally challenging. Federal award agreements typically only allow termination under specific circumstances, such as non-compliance by the grantee or mutual agreement. Shifting administrative priorities alone is unlikely to be sufficient grounds for termination. The Biden administration has been rapidly deploying as much as possible and won’t stop until Trump takes office in January - over three-quarters of the awarded funds were allocated in 2024 alone.
Source: Climate Program Portal 2024
Many states are committed to climate action regardless of federal policy.
During this election, twelve state and local ballot initiatives related to climate and conservation - totaling more than $18 billion - were approved by voters. Of the six states that flipped Republican for Trump, four still have Democratic governors with climate agendas (Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin). Michigan is still charging forward with its climate plans. There are 23 states with Democratic governors, and 17 have control over both branches of the state legislature - a Democratic trifecta that can push forward climate action. Many of these states are part of the 24 states that have set 100% clean energy goals, representing ~55% of the United States’ GDP. Illinois and California have climate disclosure laws, and New York targets 70% renewables by 2030, 100% zero-emissions electricity by 2040, and 35% benefits to disadvantaged communities. Remember to vote during your local elections! Local governments are poised to play a major role in pushing forward climate action.
Onshoring clean energy supply chains, increasing clean energy jobs, and boosting the climate economy have bi-partisan support.
Both parties want to counter China’s dominance by strengthening local supply chains. As you saw in our last article on critical minerals for the energy transition, China dominates the processing of these critical minerals and is starting to lead extraction. Back in 2020, the Trump Administration issued an Executive Order 13817 that expanded the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing (ATVM) Loan Program to allow for the support of onshoring energy supply chains. Both parties also see the potential for domestic manufacturing to create jobs and power economic growth. Private companies have invested almost $80 billion in clean energy manufacturing under the Biden administration. The Department of Energy reported that clean energy jobs grew at more than twice the rate of overall U.S. employment in 2023. While some areas in climate technology may take a step back, we have the potential to leap forward on the parts of climate that are bipartisan.
Let’s play the long game. Remember that Trump 1.0 catapulted climate to the mainstream media discourse and birthed some new (and extremely effective) climate protest groups like the Sunrise movement. Clean energy boomed and coal declined under his rule. States took the initiative to push forward their climate agendas, and immediately after, we passed the historical IRA and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. We galvanized climate action, and this time will be no different.
Optimism is a duty. The future is open. It is not predetermined. No one can predict it, except by chance. We all contribute to it by what we do. We are all equally responsible for its success. - Karl Popper
Who’s in?
Let’s keep pushing climate forward,
Stella Liu
P.S. Thank you to Dan Eichelsdoerfer, Nick Rojas, Ben Long, Andrew Yi, Adrian Tovalin, and my colleagues at RMI and Third Derivative for sending resources, sharing perspectives, and adding comments that helped shape this piece.