'We're gonna drill, baby, we're drilling': Why Trump wants US out of Paris climate accord | Climate crisis news

In his first 24 hours in office, US President Donald Trump canceled US participation in the Paris Agreement for the second time.

The environmental pact binds 196 nations to the goal of holding global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) compared to pre-industrial times.

The only countries outside it are Iran, Libya and Yemen.

“America is going to be a manufacturing nation again, and we have something that no other manufacturing nation will ever have, the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth, and we're going to use it,” Trump said in his inauguration in an official speech at the US Capitol on Monday. “We will drill, baby, drill.”

Trump also withdrew from the climate accord during his first term, when he campaigned on the theory that climate change was a hoax peddled by China to hinder US economic growth. There were no such claims in his last campaign.

Unlike Trump's 2017 withdrawal, which took four years to take effect and was reversed by the new Joe Biden administration, this withdrawal will take effect in a year.

Here's what you need to know:

Why is Trump doing it (again)?

Trump recently said the Paris Agreement will cost the US billions of dollars. He was referring to commitments made by developed economies to provide developing economies with $100 billion in grants, facilitating their transition to renewable energy. The US has also traditionally opposed any form of carbon penalties imposed on polluting companies and has not created a carbon market.

Trump has also consistently supported domestic fossil fuel production as a form of national energy security. He hasn't explained why he doesn't see domestically produced renewable energy the same way.

“The investments already made in US fossil gas will ensure that US gas production and exports will roughly double in the next five years,” said Michalis Matioulakis, academic director of the Greek Energy Forum think tank in Thessaloniki. “Trump, of course, will take credit for that, but you can't get production up in a short period of time.

Matioulakis, like many other analysts, believes the US wants to displace Russia as Europe's main supplier of fossil gas because it sees Europe's dependence on Russian gas as a security liability. It also deprives Russia of its most lucrative market and therefore of tax revenue.

“Certainly (the US) is trying to displace Russia in the world market,” Matioulakis said. “Let's not forget the lifting of the embargo on liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports happened under (former US President Barack) Obama.”

Will it stop the US energy transition?

Trump's first attempt to stop the decarbonization of the economy failed.

Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) show that 35,723 megawatts worth of coal-fired power plants were shut down during Trump's first term, more than during President Obama's first six years in office. They were replaced by less polluting fossil-gas plants, a trend that began under Obama and continued unabated during Trump's first term.

“Reversing the clean energy momentum in the US and globally will not be easy,” said Nikos Mantsaris, founder of The Green Tank, an energy think tank in Athens. “Renewables are the cheapest form of energy, and in the US, states make their own decisions.”

Solar and wind power grew during Trump's first term and surpassed coal power for the first time in US history in December 2020 as Trump prepared to leave office.

this trend is set to continue.

In 2022 then-President Joe Biden passed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), offering $270 billion in tax credits and other incentives to invest in renewable energy. By August of last year, the IRA had encouraged $215 billion in investment in solar and wind power generation, and the government had offered homeowners $8 billion in tax credits to make energy-saving renovations.

Biden's stated goal was to reduce US greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent from 2005 levels. by 2030 and by 60 percent in 2035. Biden signed a wave of IRA projects in his last two months in office, and those subsidies will continue to be paid out until 2032, four years after Trump leaves office.

The EIA projects that most of the increased US electricity use in 2025. and 2026 will be provided by solar energy.

This is part of a global shift.

The International Energy Agency, a Paris-based intergovernmental organization and think tank, there is a forecast that renewables will account for two-thirds of electricity generation in advanced economies in 2030.

Matioulakis also believed that Trump's policies would not make much of a difference. But there will be a delay in the transition to solar and wind power for other reasons, he told Al Jazeera.

“Wherever we've had rapid development of renewables, when they've reached more than 40 percent of the energy mix, there have been problems — namely that we can't scale up the use of clean energy without developing electricity storage and flexible grids,” said Matioulakis. “So there is a delay. This was going to come to Europe and the US anyway.

How much carbon is the US pumping into the air compared to others?

The US is the world's second-largest polluter after China, emitting 6 billion tonnes of carbon-equivalent gases in 2023, according to the World Resources Institute. This is about 16 percent of the world's 37 billion tons.

China tops the list with more than twice the emissions of the US. The European Union and India follow the US with about 3.4 billion tonnes each.

How are other nations responding?

China's foreign ministry said it was “concerned” about the US withdrawal.

“Climate change is a common challenge for all of humanity. No country can stay out of it,” the foreign ministry in Beijing said in a statement.

EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra called it a “really unfortunate development”.

Does this expose US goods to EU carbon taxes?

The European Commission, which has just taken office, should seriously consider imposing a carbon tax on goods imported from countries that do not have a carbon market such as the EU's Emissions Trading System (ETS).

The ETS sells carbon credits to polluters, giving them an incentive to switch to cleaner forms of energy.

The Carbon Boundary Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) aims to level the playing field for European energy companies and producers competing with countries that do not impose pollution costs.

If Trump follows through on his threat to impose tariffs on European exports to the US, it will make the imposition of a CBAM against the US much more likely.