As we enter the fall of 2024, the biggest thing happening on Earth is happening: the planet continues to warm dramatically. Scientists say there is a more than 90% chance that this year will surpass 2023 and become the warmest year on record. And paleoclimatologists were certain that last year was the hottest in the last 125,000 years. As a result, disasters that are almost cliché continue to happen. Open Twitter/X any time and see pictures of floods washing cars off a road somewhere. Life on this planet is starting to become very difficult, impossible in places. And it’s only going to get much worse.
The second biggest thing happening on the planet right now is that finally, finally, renewable energy, primarily solar and wind, is reaching some kind of takeoff point. By some calculations, we are now installing as many solar panels as a nuclear power plant every day. California now has enough solar farms and wind turbines to provide more than 100% of the state’s electricity needs for long periods this spring and summer. There are enough batteries on the grid that they are the largest source of power at night. China appears to have peaked its carbon emissions. Its renewable energy buildout is six years ahead of schedule.
The third big event over the next few months is the US presidential election, which is likely to be closely fought until the end and could have the power to determine how much warmer we get and how quickly we transition to clean energy.
Donald Trump shared his views on climate change in an interview last week.
“When you hear those poor fools talking about global warming, they don’t call it that anymore, they call it climate change, because parts of the Earth were cooling and warming and it didn’t work. So they finally made the right decision and just call it climate change. They used to call it global warming. Years ago they called it global cooling. In the 1920s they thought the Earth was going to freeze over. Now they think the Earth is going to burn up. And we’re still waiting 12 years. The 12-year period is almost over. You can see that they’re being influenced by this. These ignorant lunatics did poorly in school, didn’t study, predicted that we only had 12 more years to live, and people weren’t having children. That’s so crazy, they said. But the problem isn’t the fact that in 500 years the sea levels will rise by a quarter of an inch, it’s nuclear weapons. It’s nuclear warming. These poor fools are always talking about global warming, but they know that the earth is warming and that in 355 years the sea levels will rise by an eighth of an inch. They have no idea what’s going to happen. It’s the weather.
I quote this at length because here we have a man who is again potentially the most important person on the planet speaking about the most important issue the planet has ever faced, and he gets it word for word wrong. It makes no sense.
But this is gibberish for a very important and dangerous purpose: to do everything we can to block the energy transition in America and around the world. His friends at Project 2025 have laid out in great detail how this gibberish would translate into policy, with lovingly detailed explanations of the many steps his administration would use to bolster oil, gas, and coal while sidelining solar and wind. This includes ending efforts to boost EV production in Detroit, ending support for renewable energy (Trump promises to “kill wind,” but we’re not sure what that means), and reversing a key 2009 EPA finding that carbon dioxide causes harm. This position underpins many of the federal government’s efforts to curb climate pollution. He also promises to shut down the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, better known as the people who measure temperature rise, because those measurements are “one of the main drivers of the climate alarmism industry.”
“Drill, baby, drill.”
In return for this boundless generosity (Trump said he would be a dictator from day one in office, saying “Drill, drill, drill”), he has asked for only “$1 billion” in campaign contributions from the industry (à la Austin Powers). Big oil is doing its best. As The Washington Post reported a few weeks ago, one of the country’s most prominent frackers, Harold Hamm, is on the phone trying to raise as much money as he can. A Trump campaign aide said Hamm is “working incredibly hard to raise as much money as he can from the energy industry. He’s getting max-size checks from people who’ve never received a dollar from him before.”
Can Trump reverse the trend toward renewable energy? No, not completely. The trend is too strong, given that the costs of solar, wind, and batteries continue to fall. Even in Texas, home of the hydrocarbon cartel, where the state legislature is trying to pass laws restricting renewable energy, the economics of clean energy are becoming undeniable. The Lone Star State now leads the nation in installing batteries on its electric grid, which is a good thing, given the spate of climate disasters that are straining and stressing the state’s system.
But he can slow it down considerably. Building renewable energy in the U.S. depends, among other things, on overcoming the bewildering permitting requirements that make every transmission line a formidable bureaucratic battle. Right now, the Biden-Harris administration has a dedicated team, with senior officials assigned to major projects, constantly watching to make sure they get built on time. That will disappear, to be replaced by a new army of bureaucrats deeply involved in making sure these projects don’t get built.
The global impact will be at least as bad. Last time, Trump withdrew the US from the Paris Agreement, destroying much of the momentum the talks had created. This time, he will do the same, or even worse. For example, he has promised to finish construction of a liquefied natural gas export terminal that Biden had suspended. The terminal is designed to transport huge amounts of US gas to Asia, and would undermine the transition to renewable energy. This is the oil industry’s last real growth strategy and the biggest greenhouse gas bomb on the planet.
Essentially, Trump would be giving permission to Vladimir Putin, the King of Saudi Arabia, and all the other oligarchs in the world to keep pumping oil. If the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in history won’t do its part, why should anyone else feel the pressure? As Project 2025 clearly declares, Trump would “withdraw all climate policies from foreign aid programs” and “end the war on fossil fuels in the developing world.” (Though Trump claims to know nothing about Project 2025.) The world climate conference in Brazil next year and the one in Australia in 2026, which is currently shaping up to be the last great chance for global cooperation, would be upended.
There are ways to calculate what all this means. For example, UK-based NGO Carbon Brief said earlier this year that “a win for Donald Trump in November’s presidential election could lead to an increase of 4 billion tonnes of US emissions by 2030 compared to Joe Biden’s plan.” For reference, that’s a pretty big number. “An increase of 4 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) by 2030 would cause more than $900 billion in global climate damages, based on the US government’s latest assessment. For reference, 4 GtCO2e is equivalent to the combined annual emissions of the EU and Japan, or the combined annual emissions of the 140 lowest-emitting countries in the world.” It’s like finding another continent filled with greenhouse gases.
But what’s worse than the sum is the timing. If the Trump administration were just a four-year interregnum, that would be annoying. But in fact, it comes exactly at a time when we desperately need acceleration. We’re on the brink of breaking down the Earth’s climate system. We see it cracking at the poles (the Twitz Glacier is now being eroded by warmer ocean waters), in the Atlantic (the great currents are now starting to slow), and in the Amazon (savannahization seems to be accelerating). The Earth’s hydrological system (the way water moves around the planet) is already messed up, with warm air holding much more water vapor than cold air.
Climate scientists around the world have worked hard to map out a timetable that requires emissions to be halved by 2030, or else Paris-style goals of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels will be impossible. That cut is as far as is technically possible, but only if everyone acts in good faith. And the next president’s term ends in January 2029, 11 months before 2030.
If we elect Donald Trump, the effects will last for years, maybe even a generation. Our mistakes may be recorded in the geological record a million years from now. That’s really important.