With Donald Trump winning a come-back victory as president of the United States and Republicans in a position to win both chambers of Congress, analysts and commentators around the world are offering their views on what this means for the world’s battle to tackle climate change.
At home, Trump – a climate-change sceptic – has promised to encourage the production of fossil fuels and rein in Biden’s green economy spending.
Internationally, he has said he would withdraw the US from the Paris climate agreement, as he did briefly during his first term in office. He is reportedly also considering trying to quit the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the treaty that establishes the basic architecture for countries to work together to address climate change. He may also cut the US’s climate finance contributions to developing countries.
Climate Home is compiling reactions from climate experts in the US and beyond on the implications of a Trump victory for global climate policy and climate action in the United States:
Todd Stern, former US climate envoy
Speaking before the election, Todd Stern – who was former President Barack Obama’s chief climate negotiator, including on the Paris Agreement – said that if Trump blocks efforts to cut his country’s CO2 emissions, it “will be very disappointing – to put it mildly”. But, he added, “the machine is moving – the wheels that are spinning in all elements of clean technology are not going to stop”.
He said Trump would try to pull back Biden’s green spending through legislative mechanisms like the Inflation Reduction Act. But “in many cases, they won’t be able to do that”, Stern added, because a lot of the spending has been in states with Republican Congressmen and Governors who are “not going to want those things to be undermined because of jobs and employment”.
US climate envoy Todd Stern consults with his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua in 2011 (Pic: IISD Reporting Services/2011)
Gina McCarthy, former US presidential climate adviser and Environmental Protection Agency administrator
Echoing Stern, McCarthy said “the shift to clean energy is unstoppable and our country is not turning back”. She added that the EPA and all public servants “stand ready to do their jobs, follow the science, and protect the rule of law”. “We all must stand ready to hold this administration accountable to do its job of protecting our people and our environment,” she added.
“Bloomberg’s America Is All In [a coalition of local leaders supporting climate action] will work with cities, states and the private sector to do everything in its power to stop this administration from unwinding the progress we’ve made on climate,” she said.
Jennifer Morgan, German government climate envoy
The US-born diplomat said that the German government would “work with the next US administration wherever possible to strengthen the international rules-based order and deal with shared security challenges, including the climate crisis.”
“For Germany and the EU the transition to climate neutrality is a cornerstone of our future competitiveness. We therefore will work with all partners towards a level playing field in the race for green industries,” she added.
Jennifer Morgan speaks at the World Economic Forum in 2020 (World Economic Forum/Boris Baldinger)
Christiana Figueres, former head of the UNFCCC
The Costa Rican diplomat, who oversaw the Paris Agreement in 2015, said the US election result was a “major blow to global climate action, but it cannot and will not halt the changes underway to decarbonise the economy and meet the goals of the Paris Agreement”.
She added: “Standing with oil and gas is the same as falling behind in a fast-moving world. Clean energy technologies will continue to out-compete fossil fuels, not just because they are healthier, faster, cleaner and more abundant, but because they undercut fossil fuels where they are at their weakest: their unsolvable volatility and inefficiency.”
Legal experts say Trump could quit Paris pact – but leaving UNFCCC much harder
Izabella Teixeira, former Brazilian environment minister
Teixeira, Brazil’s environment minister from 2010 to 2016, said “there is no room for climate denialism in the context of the climate emergency”. “American society is co-responsible for global warming and, despite Trump’s victory, will undoubtedly be co-responsible for the solutions to the climate crisis,” she added.
Izabella Teixeira served as Brazil’s environment minister under ousted president Dilma Rousseff (Pic: Senado Federal/Flickr)
Laurence Tubiana, CEO of the European Climate Foundation and architect of the Paris Agreement
The French diplomat said: “The US election result is a setback for global climate action, but the Paris Agreement has proven resilient and is stronger than any single country’s policies.”
She added: “The context today is very different to [when Donald Trump was first elected in] 2016. There is powerful economic momentum behind the global transition, which the US has led and gained from, but now risks forfeiting.”
Bill Hare, climate scientist and CEO of Climate Analytics
Hare, who has contributed to the flagship scientific reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), warned that “the election of a climate denier to the US Presidency is extremely dangerous for the world”.
He added: “We are already seeing extreme damages, loss of life around the globe due to human-induced warming 1.3C. President Trump will not be above the laws of physics and nor will the country that he leads. If Trump follows through with his threat to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, the biggest loser will be the United States.”
Yao Zhe, global policy advisor at Greenpeace East Asia
Zhe said: “China finds itself at a pivotal moment. Expectations are high that China will join key nations in reassuring the world that climate action will continue.” She added that, to reassure the world, China should submit a new UN climate plan “that outlines clear actions to transition away from fossil fuels”.
“Climate played a crucial role in stabilising US-China relations during the Biden time. The Trump administration may undo some of the climate diplomacy gains of recent years, but US-China climate cooperation will continue at the subnational level and among non-state actors,” she concluded.
Mary Robinson, former prime minister of Ireland
Robinson said: “I sincerely hope that the recent hurricanes in the United States have caused President Trump to rethink his belief that climate change will create ‘more oceanfront properties’. It will only bring more death and devastation.”
She called for a redoubling of efforts by those working to tackle global warming, adding: “The outcome of the US elections should not be used as an excuse by world leaders to avoid taking action against climate change.”
Mary Robinson is a climate justice campaigner, UN special envoy and former president of Ireland (Pic: twitter/ODI)
Collin Rees, Oil Change International’s US program manager
Rees called for Biden to “secure his climate legacy” by ending fossil fuel expansion, making permanent a pause on LNG gas exports, shutting down the Dakota Access oil pipeline and fulfilling the US’s commitment to stop financing international fossil fuel projects.
“What Biden does now will determine whether he’ll be remembered as the leader who did his utmost to limit the Trump administration’s damage and keep the world from hurtling towards climate chaos,” he said.
Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency
The Turkish energy analyst congratulated Trump in a social media post on X and said that, as during his first term, the International Energy Agency “looks forward to working closely with your new administration to support US energy policy goals and to advance global efforts towards affordable, secure & sustainable energy.”
IEA head Fatih Birol speaks at the Battersea power station shopping centre (Picture: Powering Past Coal Alliance)
(Reporting by Climate Home news team; editing by Megan Rowling)
The post US election: Climate experts react to Donald Trump’s victory appeared first on Climate Home News.
US election: Climate experts react to Donald Trump’s victory
Climate Change
North Carolina Regulators Nix $1.2 Billion Federal Proposal to Dredge Wilmington Harbor
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers failed to explain how it would mitigate environmental harms, including PFAS contamination.
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North Carolina Regulators Nix $1.2 Billion Federal Proposal to Dredge Wilmington Harbor
Australia has some of the largest areas of high volume, consistent solar and wind energy anywhere in the world. It is a natural advantage that many countries in our region and across Europe will envy as they ramp up their efforts to reduce carbon pollution.
Australia has an amazing opportunity to utilise this abundance of reliable energy not only to transform our own energy systems but also that of our neighbours – if we get the policy settings right.
We are, in fact, already seeing the benefits of renewable energy flowing into our electricity grids. With all the inflation pressures on our bank accounts it looks like electricity pricing may be one cost that could be turning a corner – largely thanks to cheap solar and wind energy.
Renewables are Bringing Down the Cost of Producing Electricity
Here at Greenpeace, while we think there are some important questions to ask about renewable energy, it is clear that solar and wind are certainly the cheapest energy options available.
In contrast, coal, oil and gas are not only big on pollution, they are also proving costlier as they struggle to cope with the changing nature of our electricity systems. Plus, fossil fuels are much more exposed to international price fluctuations – as we all experienced when our electricity bills rapidly rose following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Wouldn’t it be great if we instead had energy independence, sourced from an infinite supply of clean energy?
Solar and wind (backed by batteries) can do just that and the reality is that they are already out-competing the old guard of gas and coal simply because they are quicker and cheaper to deploy. Which is good news for electricity prices!
Although whether energy retailers are passing on those savings to customers is another question. Short answer: no, they’re not – but it is a bit complex.
Why are my electricity bills still high?
There are a number of elements that make up the final amount we see on our bills. The graph below shows the breakdown of energy costs covered by our bills.
You will see roughly a third (36.2% in 2025-26) of the cost goes to maintenance and build out of the electricity grid. This includes the transmission lines needed to connect to new renewable energy sites and to connect states so they can better share their energy resources. The ‘network’ costs have been increasing but so have other components of our bill, most notably the ‘wholesale’ cost of producing electricity.
Thankfully, the cost of producing the electricity is now starting to go down (thanks to renewables and batteries), but they are coming off record highs thanks to the exorbitant cost of gas and the unreliability of coal power stations that are old and no longer fit for purpose.
During high demand times (eg, when we all get home from work on a hot day and turn on the air conditioning) spot prices can quickly jump. Add to that a couple of coal power plants breaking down (as they increasingly do), and expensive gas fired power use spikes in the system. This can quickly cancel out any of the cost savings solar power may have created during the day when prices can actually go negative.
The good news is that this is exactly the problem batteries can solve. Batteries are great at soaking up the surplus supply of solar during the middle of the day, which creates a more efficient system, and then rapidly pumping out that power during the evening peak at a cheaper rate than gas.
How much have costs come down?
According to the Australian energy regulator (AEMO), wholesale electricity prices across the east coast have dropped by 44% when comparing prices in quarter 4 of 2025 to the same period in 2024.
AEMO directly attributes the change to the significant growth in wind (up 29%), solar (up 15%), and batteries (3,796 MW of new battery capacity added). This influx of cheap renewable energy has seen a corresponding decrease in the use of polluting fossil fuels to power the grid. Coal fired power dropped by 4.6% and gas fired power fell by a staggering 27%.
The same trend can be seen in the world’s largest standalone grid in WA where renewable energy and storage supplied a record 52.4% of the grid’s energy across the final 3 months of 2025. That is an impressive result given there is no interstate connection to borrow energy from and there is no hydroelectric power in the system.
As a result, WA has seen a 13% drop in wholesale electricity prices thanks to a 5.8% reduction in coal fired power and a 16.4% reduction in gas fired power.
Australian Households Lead the Way on Solar and Batteries
Despite all the attempts to discredit clean energy by Trump and other conservative politicians, Aussie households have long known the value of renewable energy. In fact, Australia now holds the title for the highest rate of solar energy per capita in the world.
This is now being followed by the rapid takeup of household batteries with the Clean Energy Regulator being overwhelmed with interest in the Cheaper Home Batteries Program. They now expect to receive “around 175,000 valid battery applications corresponding to a total usable capacity of 3.9 GWh by the end of 2025.”’
All these extra batteries storing the surplus solar energy across our neighbourhoods during the day is not only creating drastic bill reductions for those households who are installing them, it is helping the whole grid. Which eventually will help everyone’s electricity bills.
If Australia as a whole follows the lead of suburban families by switching to cheap solar (plus wind) backed-up by batteries, it has an unparalleled opportunity to build its economy on the back of unlimited, local, clean energy harnessed from the sun and wind.
Powering our Future Economy
If there was ever something Australia has a natural advantage in, its sun and wind. But given the growing demand for electricity from data centres and the electrification of heavy industry, we are going to need more than just rooftop solar panels.
That’s where Australia has the potential, more than almost any other country, to become a renewable energy powerhouse and punch above our weight in the fight against climate change. See for example the unique opportunity to enter into the production and export of green iron.
While there is still quite a way to go before our electricity is fully sourced from solar and wind, we are well on the way. The clean energy charge is gathering pace – and our communities, oceans, wildlife and bank balances will be the better for it.
Climate Change
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