While much of the West is turning its back on fossil fuels, President-elect Donald Trump has wasted no time in rejecting one of the mantras of the green agenda, declaring in his victory speech that he plans to take full advantage of American oil—or, as he calls it, “liquid gold.” And in the days leading up to what has been dubbed the ‘greatest political comeback in history,’ both Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance, told the millions of listeners of the influential Joe Rogan podcast that they would be turning away from some of the most commonly used forms of renewable energy.
In short, the recent electoral success of ‘the Donald’ and the GOP will soon show increasingly cold and impoverished Western Europeans the effectiveness of fossil fuels.
Some of Britain’s more right-wing commentators are expressing their hopes that this shift will have a knock-on effect on this side of the pond, too. It is worth remembering that one senior Labour figure said just days before his party got into office that they would be up for throwing “hundreds of billions of pounds” at net zero proposals.
As energy and climate change secretary—and one time leader of the Labour Party—Ed Miliband made his way to the United Nation’s Climate Change Conference (COP29) over the weekend, journalist Isabel Oakeshott described Trump’s election as a “shattering blow to net zero crusaders.”
Oakeshott, who is the partner of Reform UK’s deputy leader Richard Tice, added in a piece for The Daily Telegraph:
As British voters finally begin to appreciate what is being sacrificed [at the altar of net zero], a growing number seem likely to be drawn to what Trump has to say.
If millions start questioning the point in abandoning fossil fuels and turning our beautiful countryside into a latticework of new cables and pylons and giant solar panel farms when America is doing the reverse, Miliband and his party face political catastrophe.
Claire Coutinho, who is the Conservative’s shadow energy secretary, also suggested that when Miliband failed last week to deliver a statement in the House of Commons in response to criticism of his plans for “100% clean power by 2030,” he revealed he already knew that “the game was up.”
And it’s not just in the UK that the net zero agenda appears to be at risk of running out of momentum.
Shares in Danish wind turbine firms Ørsted and Vestas dropped 11 and 10%, respectively, on the news of Trump’s victory, knocking billions off their values.
Pro-renewable magazine Recharge also ran a story immediately after the election quoting industry insiders who see Trump 2.0 as the “worst-case scenario” for wind power companies, believing he will be a “greater challenge” for Europe’s industry than during his first presidency.
Not that much of Europe’s establishment won’t attempt to cling on to the current status quo. The environment deputy of London mayor Sadiq Khan has already made it quite clear that “climate denier” Trump “isn’t going to affect” Labour’s ambition to make Labour net zero. But their job of persuading voters they are pursuing the right path appears to have just got a whole lot harder.
