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Trust, credibility and the fate of the US renewables industry

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Pelle Svanslös

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Jun 1, 2017, 6:14:59 PM6/1/17
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In important ways the Trump administration had backed away from its
Paris commitments long before Thursday.

When it signed on to Paris in 2015, the United States promised to cut
its greenhouse-gas emissions 25 percent below where they stood in 2005.
To meet these goals, the Obama administration advanced a slew of new
executive policies, including the Clean Power Plan for the electricity
sector, fuel-economy standards for cars, and a rule limiting how much
methane could be freely vented from public lands.

In less than six months in office, the Trump administration has
systematically rolled back these rules, ceded to court challenges
against them, or signaled that it will not strictly enforce them. He has
also asked Congress to cancel the subsidies for renewable energy, and
his Department of Energy is pursuing policies that Chuck Grassley, a
Republican senator from Iowa, has decried as “anti-wind.”

With those policy changes already taking effect, it seems unlikely
that—even if the United States remained in Paris—it could still meet its
commitments under the treaty.

And that raises a broader question about the health—and ultimate fate—of
the U.S. renewable-energy industry. Without support from the government,
or access to the developing market through UN climate talks, American
firms may be at a disadvantage negotiating with developing countries. It
will make it far easier for China and Germany’s manufacturing sectors to
dominate the renewable-energy industry, a trillion-dollar industry
expected to more than quadruple in size.

Germany and China both aggressively subsidize their own clean-energy
firms. And the EU and China have already planned to work closer with
each other on climate-related research and technological development.

This possibility dominated a rare statement from Barack Obama, released
as Trump was speaking. “The nations that remain in the Paris Agreement
will be the nations that reap the benefits in jobs and industries. I
believe the United States of America should be at the front of the
pack,” he said. “For the nations that committed themselves to that
future, the Paris Agreement opened the floodgates for businesses,
scientists, and engineers to unleash high-tech, low-carbon investment
and innovation on an unprecedented scale.”

If solar and wind companies in the United States falter—and if this
country hunkers down into a fossil-fuel-dominated economy in the
2020s—then it may permanently deprive the American economy of a massive
global opportunity. It could also undercut the U.S. claim to a century
of global leadership on scientific research and technological development.

And perhaps most importantly, it will allow Germany and China to lead
the world diplomatically on other issues, as well. At best, a Democratic
president negotiating an international agreement which a Republican
president then abandons will be interpreted as instability; at worst, it
will throw other U.S. diplomatic commitments into doubt.

“Global statecraft relies on trust, reputation and credibility, which
can be all too easily squandered,” has warned George P. Shultz, the U.S.
secretary of state under President Ronald Reagan. “If America fails to
honor a global agreement that it helped forge, the repercussions will
undercut our diplomatic priorities across the globe.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/06/did-donald-trump-just-make-the-planet-hotter/525222/

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