Trump’s promises are just hot air

Coal is dying as a major energy source in the US for reasons far beyond the reach of executive orders.

US President Donald Trump.

“My administration is putting an end to the war on coal,” said Donald Trump, surrounded by the usual gaggle of officials and in this case, coal miners, as he put his super-size signature on the Energy Independence Executive Order.

But coal is dying as a major energy source in the United States for reasons far beyond the reach of executive orders. “The miners are coming back,” Trump boasted at a rally in Kentucky.

But Robert Murray, founder and CEO of Murray Energy, the biggest US coal company, promptly rained on his parade.

“I suggested that [Trump] temper his expectations,” he said.

“He can’t bring them back.”

Trump’s latest executive order is not just about coal. It’s a frontal assault on all the Obama-era regulations that aimed at curbing climate change. But while it will slow the decline in US greenhouse gas emissions, it will not have a major impact on global emissions.

That is partly because US accounts for only 16% of global emissions.

Compared with China’s 29%, it doesn’t matter all that much and China remains committed to big cuts. In January, China scrapped plans for 104 new coal-fired power plants, and it intends to invest $361 billion (equal to half the US defence budget) in renewable energy between now and 2020.

The Chinese government is spending that kind of money because it is rightly terrified about what global warming will do to China’s economy and, above all, to its food supply.

The Chinese remain committed to the climate goals agreed at Paris in December 2015, even though the US has defected.

Their own futures depend on meeting those goals – and they know that the American defection does not destroy all hope of success.

Globally speaking, it’s not that big a deal. It would seem like a bigger deal if they were not confident that US greenhouse gas emissions will continue to decline under Trump, though not as fast as they would under a less ignorant administration. Coal provides an excellent example of why.

In 2009, when Barack Obama entered the White House, coal provided 52% of US electricity. In only eight years it has fallen to 33% and the decline has little to do with Obama’s Clean Power Plan.

First, cheap gas from fracking undercut the coal price and then even solar power got cheaper than coal – so 411 coal-fired plants closed down.

Half the 765 remaining big coalfired plants in the US were built before 1972. Since the average age when American coal-fired plants are scrapped is 58 years, half of them will soon be gone, no matter what Trump does.

From fuel efficiency in automobiles to replacing coal-fired plants with natural gas or solar arrays, saving money goes hand-in-hand with cutting emissions.

The economy is not your enemy; it’s your ally. So Trump won’t do nearly as much harm as people feared. Obama promised last year to cut US greenhouse gas emissions by about 26% from the 2005 level by 2025.

About half of that 26% cut would have come in Trump’s first and maybe only term (2017-20) so, say 13%. The US accounts for 16% of global emissions, so do the math: 13% of 16% equals about 2%of global emissions.

So how much damage can Trump do to the global fight against climate change over the next four years?

He can keep global emissions about 1% higher than they would have been if the US had kept its promise to the Paris conference. And that’s all.