Trump Should Be Held Accountable For Defunding Renewable Energy Projects

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Years of US local weather motion have been decimated in a mere few months. Renewable vitality within the US had tripled over the past decade with photo voltaic, wind, and geothermal turning into an increasing number of mainstream. Now the Trump administration is defunding renewable vitality tasks which have been designed to average our warming world.

For these involved concerning the local weather disaster, a brand new evaluation points to the lack of nearly $8 billion in renewable vitality investments. These aren’t simply small scale photo voltaic farms or a few wind generators on a hill. No, they embrace 16 large-scale factories and different tasks that have been canceled, closed, or downsized within the first three months of 2025. Ninety-five clear vitality tasks have been delayed, threatened, or cancelled since Trump’s re-election, placing greater than 60,000 jobs and $71 billion in funding in danger.

And it’s not simply the tasks in planning and building phases which have been affected. Any US federal company that has any sort of relationship with clear vitality/ local weather/ conservation/ climate/ renewable vitality has been threatened, harassed, and reduce. The Environmental Safety Company faces a 54.5% proposed reduce. The large adjustments in US analysis are inflicting many scientists within the nation to rethink their lives and careers. Greater than 1,200 scientists who responded to a Nature poll — three-quarters of the entire respondents — are contemplating leaving the US, with Europe and Canada among the many prime selections for relocation.

Trump and his coteries of Sure Sirs argue that ignoring local weather will decrease vitality prices for shoppers, assist the financial system, and safe “energy dominance” for the US. It’s an entire lotta BS.

At a latest CleanTechnica plant-based potluckI sidled over to Steve Hanley, our intrepid reporter. I bemoaned the Trump tariffs and sneered at the concept that they’d return manufacturing to the US. Steve reminded the gathering group that former President Joe Biden already was working to return manufacturing to the US — it was known as the Inflation Reduction Act. CleanTechnica’s CEO Zachary Shahan concurred, reminding us how the Inflation Discount Act  — “the biggest policy in history focused on reshoring manufacturing capacity in the United States” — led to quite a few new factories within the photo voltaic, battery, and EV industries.

Thomas Friedman described in a New York Occasions editorial that “President Trump is focused on what teams American transgender athletes can race on, and China is focused on transforming its factories with AI so it can outrace all our factories.”

A month-to-month survey launched by the Institute for Provide Administration outlined how corporations reported increased costs, fewer new orders, and declining employment  as a consequence of uncertainties over the tariff atmosphere. A scarcity {of electrical} elements akin to transformers, circuit breakers, and switchgear has persevered for 54 consecutive months, in response to ISM. And that’s hampered efforts to maintain up with rising electrical energy demand from knowledge facilities.

The tariff transformation will completely have an effect on the worldwide transition to inexperienced vitality. The precise impacts of defunding renewable vitality tasks will change into all-too-clear because the weeks go by, however actually it is going to take corporations years to readjust their provide chains. Within the meantime, the enterprise push is on to boost costs on vitality, cars, and shopper items.

Donald Trump and his administration repeatedly attempt to undermine US progress towards a zero emission financial system by means of defending renewable vitality in its numerous iterations. It’s time for all of us to take daring motion to carry the Trump Administration accountable.

In the meantime, Renewables are Feeding Everybody’s Starvation for Power

What the Trump administration fails to acknowledge is that renewable vitality has slashed dangerous greenhouse gasoline emissions, made the nation’s vitality system extra resilient, and prevented hundreds of untimely deaths from energy plant air pollution, in response to a report by Surroundings America.

• The quantity of photo voltaic vitality produced in 2024 – sufficient to energy 28m houses – was practically eight instances increased than a decade earlier. Solar energy manufacturing elevated 27% from 2023 to 2024.
• Wind produced much more vitality – sufficient to energy 42m houses in 2024. The quantity of energy from wind has greater than doubled over the previous decade.
• Wind, photo voltaic, and geothermal vitality accounted for 19% of all retail gross sales of electrical energy final 12 months, in response to the federal knowledge used to supply the report.
• The quantity of utility-scale battery storage within the US grew 63% from 2023 to 2024 – and a greater than 80-fold improve over the previous decade.
• Practically 3.3m electrical automobiles have been on US roads on the finish of 2023 – a 25-fold improve from 2014.
• Greater than 1.5m plug-in electrical automobiles have been offered in 2024, a rise of greater than 7% over the earlier 12 months.
• Practically 300,000 new electrical automobiles have been offered within the US throughout the first quarter of 2025 – an 11% improve over the identical interval final 12 months.
• The variety of electrical car charging ports grew to greater than 218,000 on the finish of 2024 – six instances greater than there have been in 2015 and a 24% improve from simply the 12 months earlier than.

“The growth of these clean energy technologies is now clearly benefiting people in all 50 states, and they’re really providing the building blocks of a clean energy system free from dirty and inefficient fuels,” Johanna Neumann, senior director of the Marketing campaign for 100% Renewable Power, which is led by Surroundings America, told The Guardian. “And the more that we can accelerate the progress that we’ve seen, the better it’ll be for our health and for our environment.”

Defunding renewable vitality by the Trump administration doesn’t must be an finish sport. Need to discover out extra concerning the progress of renewable vitality and different clear vitality applied sciences in your state? Click on here for a state-specific reality sheet summarizing the info from Surroundings America’s State of Renewable Power dashboard.

Trump Doesn’t See What How the World is Embracing World Renewable Development

In keeping with the Worldwide Power Company (IEA)’s World Power Overview, the world’s urge for food for vitality rose at a faster-than-average tempo in 2024, despite the fact that Trump’s enjoyment of defunding renewable vitality tasks takes over home information headlines. In flip, there’s a increased demand for all vitality sources — from oil and gasoline to renewables. The company discovered that renewables accounted for many of the progress in international vitality provide, making up 38%.

Global Renewables Watch (GRW) is a first-of-its-kind “living atlas”, which works to map and measure all utility-scale photo voltaic and wind installations worldwide utilizing AI and satellite tv for pc imagery. Launched by Microsoft, Planet Labs, and The Nature Conservancy in 2022, GRW permits customers to judge clear vitality transition progress and observe developments. Its findings are:

• The world’s photo voltaic land protection has tripled over the previous seven years.
• Onshore wind generators have greater than doubled, with 375,000 on-line as of halfway by means of 2024.
• The US and China lead in whole wind turbine installations, whereas European international locations lead per capita.
• Greater than half of Europe’s wind generators are concentrated in 5 international locations: Germany, Spain, France, the UK, and Italy.