What Does A Trump Presidency Mean For Climate Change?

Obama Meeting With Trump In The Oval Office On November 10, 2016
Credit: Pete Souza

Whether you voted for or against him, you cannot deny that Donald Trump has said many outrageous things over the course of his campaign. And luckily for us, some of the most outrageous things he has said have been about the weather. From claiming “there is no drought” in California to his many tweets expressing is belief that global warming is a hoax, it’s fair to say that The Donald and The Facts have somewhat of a strained relationship.

He recently came under fire by the Chinese government concerning the tweet below. China’s Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin explained that China couldn’t have invented the global warming hoax because former Republicans Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush supported the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a body that researches both the science behind climate change and its repercussions for society.

Given Trump’s wild claims and tendency to quickly change his stance on so many issues, I believe it is too early to know if his term will be a complete disaster with regards to climate change. Here’s what we do know at this point:

• He’s picked Myron Ebell to lead his EPA Transition Team. Ebell refutes the scientific consensus on climate change and is the Director of Global Warming and International Environmental Policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian think-tank in Washington DC.
• He wants to “cancel” the U.S.’s ratification of the Paris Climate Accords
• He claims he wants to revive the U.S. coal industry

However, he has also:

• Applied for a permit to build a seawall to protect the “Trump International Golf Links & Hotel Ireland” from “global warming and its effects.”
• Signed an open letter to President Obama & congress in 2009 urging that climate legislation be passed (see second line from the bottom).

While there is substantial evidence that Trump simply switches his position on climate change  when its in his best interest, his appointment of Ebell is very discouraging and is bad news for the planet. What we have to do is convince him that it is in his best interest to curtail our carbon emissions.

In the past, this has been hard to do. Renewable energy (excluding hydropower) has traditionally been more expensive than fossil fuels and has required government subsidies to be competitive with fossil fuels. In a highly competitive capitalistic society, companies tend to act in their own best interest to succeed instead of the interests of society as a whole. There’s only an incentive to use alternative energy when doing so benefits the company itself.

The good thing is that alternative energy has been getting cheaper and cheaper relative to fossil fuels as time goes on. There are many different estimates on the “levelised cost of electricity” (LCOE) for different energy sources, which can be thought of as how much it costs to produce a given amount of electricity. As the graphic below shows, onshore wind is cheaper than coal and has a similar LCOE to natural gas. It’s important to note that LCOE varies by region – the LCOE for solar power will obviously be lower in Arizona than Eastern Washington.

Solar is seeing the largest decrease in LCOE as time goes on. A silicon solar panel cost 76 bucks per watt back in 1977. In 2015 the cost was only 30 cents. And as the green chart below shows, solar panel LCOE is expected to decrease by nearly 50% between 2010 and 2020 as panels become more efficient and cost less to manufacture. Wind power is also becoming cheaper as blades become lighter and more efficient and towers are built to higher heights, thus getting stronger winds.

While we all hope that Trump reverses course on his global warming rhetoric and makes reducing carbon emissions a priority, it is reassuring to know that renewable energy is becoming more and more attractive from an economic perspective on its own. While solar and wind are fickle, non-dispatchable energy sources and must be supplemented with something dispatchable (such as fossil fuels, nuclear, or hydro) to cover demand when they are underperforming, investing in them offers the chance to grow our local economy, become less dependent on foreign countries for energy, and even save some money in the process! Seems like a no-brainer to me, and seems like something Trump would like.

There’s one more problem though. According to Twitter, Trump HATES windmills, saying they kill views, tourism, and birds. He has personal experience with them; he tried to build a golf course near Aberdeen Bay, Scotland but became very upset when the Scottish government licensed an offshore wind farm near the course. He sued to block the farm, took the case to the Scottish Supreme Court, and attacked Alex Salmond, the First Minister of Scotland at the time, for his “obsession with obsolete wind technology” that “will destroy the magnificence and beauty of Scotland.”

Of course, when asked about his opinion on wind power by an Iowa voter whose husband worked for a local wind turbine manufacturer, Trump replied that he’s “OK” with it and remarked in his typical fragmented fashion: “It’s an amazing thing when you think – you know, where they can, out of nowhere, out of the wind, they make energy.” He also cited the need for the U.S. to become energy independent and “get away from the Middle East.”

Though Trump may claim to love coal and hate windmills, I don’t see a drastic return to coal anytime soon because it is becoming more expensive than both wind and other fossil fuels (such as natural gas due to fracking). Utility companies and Independent Power Producers would be able to improve their profits and deliver cheaper electricity to customers if they invested in cheaper methods of electricity generation.

I believe both solar and wind will continue to develop where it is cost-effective to do so. Back in December 2015, Congress extended a 30% renewable tax credit for wind and solar to 2019, and while I believe Trump and the Republican legislature are less likely to try and extend it, this may actually spur utilities to invest in renewable energy sooner rather than later. Additionally, solar panels extremely cheap right now due to a worldwide supply glut, and although this is bad for solar company stockholders, it is great for those looking to install solar capacity.

While Trump may not invest federal funds in renewable energy technologies or increase existing renewable energy subsidies, I believe that wind and solar have a bright future ahead of them even without subsidies. Because of Trump’s inconsistency on environmental policy, I believe it’s too early to hypothesize what will happen at the federal level, though his appointment of Myron Ebell is extremely worrisome. I will keep you posted on what’s happening in our government with regards to climate policy.

Thanks for reading,
Charlie