Chart: Trump’s win could lead to far more planet-warming emissions

Canary Media’s chart of the week translates crucial data about the clean energy transition into a visual format. Canary thanks Clean Energy Counsel for its support of the column.

The U.S. energy transition will suffer a major setback thanks to the election of former President Donald Trump to a second term. The question now is just how big that setback will be.

Analysis conducted by Carbon Brief earlier this year offers one potential answer: A Trump administration could cause the U.S. to emit an additional 4 billion metric tons of planet-warming carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by 2030, crushing hopes that the nation — and the world — can meet near-term climate commitments.

Carbon Brief’s analysis assumes the Trump administration will completely repeal the Biden administration’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which has already sparked a clean energy manufacturing boom in the U.S. and helped to accelerate the adoption of renewables and EVs. Analysts say the law is necessary for the U.S. to even come close to doing its part to reduce emissions fast enough to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

Trump has explicitly said he would throw out the law if elected, but it’s unclear how likely that is to happen. Repealing a law requires congressional action. Republicans won the Senate and look increasingly likely to retain a majority in the House, but key races have yet to be called as of Friday morning. Even if Republicans end up with control of both chambers, efforts to repeal the IRA may meet intraparty opposition: A number of Republican lawmakers have publicly voiced support for the law, which has largely funneled money to GOP-leaning states and districts.

The Carbon Brief analysis also assumes Trump will undo Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency rules that aim to slash emissions from vehicles, power plants, and oil and gas production. Advocates fear this is a foregone conclusion because it does not require approval from Congress.

A Trump administration could stymie the energy transition in a number of other ways that Carbon Brief doesn’t even account for, from further increasing oil and gas production — already at record-high levels — to gutting key clean energy programs within the Department of Energy, as recommended by the Project 2025 policy roadmap written by scores of Trump affiliates.

Whatever the specifics, it seems clear that the incoming Trump administration will slow down instead of speed up the U.S. clean energy transition — the exact opposite of what’s needed to rein in the global climate crisis. 

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